Time Regained (1999)

Directed by Raúl Ruiz.
Starring Catherine Deneuve and Emmanuelle Béart.

In a Nutshell: Marcel Proust reminisces about his past while on his deathbed.

The film Time Regained is based on the final volume in Marcel Proust’s In Search of the Lost Time. While on his deathbed, Proust (played by various actors at various stages, but largely by Marcello Mazzarella) reflects on his past though not in a straight recollection. His thoughts are distortions, influenced by his own writings (in this case, the final volume) and told in an episodic, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Characters swim in and out of focus while conflicts mount and then disappear. It is a disorienting feel, but one of a raging mind lost in thought. Films of this nature do confront some limitations. An episodic manner can leave ideas and plot points hanging in the air and a cohesive story is never entirely realized. Raúl Ruiz seems less concerned in accurately adapting Proust’s work than using it to illustrate the nature of our memories.

While this impedes any dramatic momentum, the film can be enjoyed for the significance to Proust that comes with each vignette. Memories of love, betrayal and class warfare float up from Proust’s dying mind; frozen moments that he would never relive, but would never regret. His experiences equal our own, as do our fondness for them. For those unfamiliar with Proust’s work (myself included) Time Regained provides enough of his perspective to provoke curiosity. Proust was obsessed with the past and its impact on our present-day selves. Ruiz’s dream-like narrative passes seamlessly through time to make Proust as vivid a child as a dying man, while holding desperately onto his memories against the passage of time. Time Regained was never meant as a straight adaptation, but is a beautiful meditation on the thoughts we hold dear; little fragments of heaven lost in time.