"Hopelessly retro, eternally avant-garde, and one of the most influential movies ever made.... [It] eludes tense. The movie is what it is—a sustained mood, an empty allegory, a choreographed moment outside of time, and a shocking intimation of perfection."
     - J. Hoberman, Village Voice

"Haven't we met somewhere before?" urbane Giorgio Albertazzi asks stunning Delphine Seyrig during a chic gathering at a baroque chateau. And he keeps asking her, politely but persistently, throughout the mansion's plush interiors, its mirrored walls and marble statuary, across the game tables of its casino, and outdoors in the maze-like garden that warps space like a de Chirico painting. Their question-and-answer game plays out through increasingly dreamlike sequences and disorienting segues, jumping back and forth in time, Albertazzi pushing for seduction and Seyrig seeming to bend—or is it the other way around? In her first leading role, Seyrig looks gorgeous styled in Coco Chanel, who later advertised her signature fragrance in a memorable 1980s television commercial inspired by the film.

DIR Alain Resnais; SCR Alain Robbe-Grillet; PROD Pierre Courau and Raymond Froment. France/Italy/West Germany/Austria, 1961, b&w, 94 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

No passes accepted.