Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime

A science fiction film. Claude Ridder has just come out of hospital. He survived an attempt on his own life and expects nothing from what is left. Two men are waiting at the door. They come from a research centre and want something from him: take part in an experiment. They say why plainly; they are looking for someone with nothing to lose. The experiment sends a person back in time. He will be sent to a single minute a year ago and brought back. So far it has only been tried on a mouse. The machine works, but it does not work properly. Claude reaches that one minute, then another moment, then another. The pieces of his life begin arriving out of order: a beach, an office, a train, a conversation in the same room, all of it again and again. What the film is interested in is not time travel but memory: the narrative imitates the way a person remembers their own past, which is to say disordered and obsessive. At the centre of all those pieces is a woman, and how the relationship ended appears slowly. Claude Rich plays Claude. Olga Georges-Picot and Anouk Ferjac are in the cast. Alain Resnais directed. When it opened, the events in France that year meant it was barely seen; it was found later. Who it is for: anyone who likes experiments in editing and cinema built on memory. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a straight story; the narrative is in pieces and the viewer assembles the order.