Je t'aime, Je t'aime

A heady time travel movie by way of a melancholy memory film, 1968's Je t'aime, Je t'aime was the fifth feature from French New Wave director Alain Resnais, who collaborated with Belgian author Jacques Sternberg—a writer of surreal, free-form prose—to tell the story of Claude Ritter (Claude Rich), an author who takes part in a time travel experiment. Ritter is the survivor of a suicide attempt, which is one reason that he is chosen, and he agrees to be sent back a year to relive a single minute of his life, a test successfully conducted on mice but never attempted with a human. The initial trip (which is launched from a strange blob of a capsule that looks more organic than electronic) is a success until he loses his anchor in the present and becomes lost—zigzagging through moments of his past life, especially his troubled relationship with an eccentric, emotionally unstable girlfriend (Olga Georges-Picot). This is a very different conception of time travel fiction than American and British traditions, depicting a man who is trapped in a swirl of memories and moments that are shuffled into brief, seemingly random scenes. Je t'aime, Je t'aime may rightfully frustrate sci-fi fans, but could intrigue those interested in foreign movies that challenge expectations. Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, archival interviews with Resnais and Rich, and an essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)