Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust (1999)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Raoul Ruiz

Writers:

Marcel Proust (novel)
Gilles Taurand (scenario) ...

Release Date:

19 May 1999 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is on his deathbed. Looking at photographs brings memories of his childhood...

Plot Keywords:

Memory | Childhood | Time | Youth | Marcel Proust

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Catherine Deneuve	...	Odette de Crecy
Emmanuelle Béart	...	Gilberte
Vincent Perez	...	Morel
John Malkovich	...	Le Baron de Charlus
Pascal Greggory	...	Saint-Loup
Marcello Mazzarella	...	Marcel Proust
Marie-France Pisier	...	Madame Verdurin
Chiara Mastroianni	...	Albertine
Arielle Dombasle	...	Madame de Farcy
Edith Scob	...	Oriane de Guermantes
Elsa Zylberstein	...	Rachel
Christian Vadim	...	Bloch
Dominique Labourier	...	Madame Cottard
Philippe Morier-Genoud	...	Monsieur Cottard
Melvil Poupaud	...	Le Prince de Foix

Also Known As:

Il tempo ritrovato (Italy)
Le temps retrouvé (France) (short title)
Marcel Proust's Time Regained (USA)
O Tempo Reencontrado (Portugal)
Time Regained (UK)

Runtime:

Argentina:158 min | France:169 min | Taiwan:158 min | UK:162 min | Canada:162 min

Country:

France | Italy | Portugal

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Portugal:M/12 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:18 | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Gemini Films

Soundtrack:

Le temps retrouvé (Vocalise)

Satisfying but overlong movie, effectively presenting the work of Proust

This is a thoughtful and carefully planned cinematic conversion of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It manages to preserve Proust's epicurean oeuvre in producing a film that introduces us to characters and their relationships with others, but layered through the eyes of (I counted four) different-aged Prousts.

The chief Proust (not counting Patrice Chereau's narrator) is played brilliantly by Marcello Mazzarella - I thought of Adrian Brody posing for a three hour long portrait. The satellite characters closest in his conscious orbit are all competently taken by a mixture of A-list and never-heard-of, although I'd like to speak up for Pascal Gregory's colourful Saint-Loup and... John Malkovich's Charlus. I still can't come to love this actor, although his inscrutably cold style seems appropriate in this company and project. His one overacted scene is a clumsily overdubbed, single take sequence, so he probably thought it would be cut anyway.

Accolades - and, I'm afraid the responsibility for the inconsistency of the film - rest at the door of Ruiz though. I was drawn to his light touch with the resurgent melancholy as Proust looks back on his life (Istvan Szabo manages a similar balance between weight and momentum in the contemporaneous Sunshine, but with a linear, rather than collage approach). The period observation is excellent, and the surreal episodes which are either smeared across the detail or bloom from it do not sink the film with their pretensions. However, the sense of structure, which takes time to emerge, is dealt a death blow with a half hour-overlong coda. In my ignorance, I suspect that this is an attempt to be faithful to the book. But it's unnecessary, and fatally oversaturates a beautifully delivered, if not compelling conceit. 5/10