Director: Alain Resnais
Year Released: 1966
Rating: 3.5
'Professional revolutionary' Yves Montand leaves his native Spain to return to France and reconnect with his lover (Ingrid Thulin), consort with his fellow Communists and meet with some hot-headed student radicals, who want to blow things up first and think things out later. Resnais' career-long fascination with memory (shared with countryman Chris Marker) shows up once more in this early work, as Montand's world-weariness clouds his political judgment - he knows how to forge passports, get past security, use people to get by, but even he realizes you keep at it for so long, and the last drive he takes in the movie isn't to "freedom," it's to his end (or maybe his 'end' is his freedom). This acts as a sober counter-balance to some of the more fervent leftist movies of the time (or even the radical Russian pictures), showing that a lifetime of fighting underground and worrying about being followed by the police (or spies) can take its toll on a person and may not work out as well as planned.
