Time Regained (DVD), Kino Lorber, Drama

An Official Selection at both the Cannes and New York Film Festivals, Raoul Ruiz's Time Regained performs the remarkable feat of bringing the work of Marcel Proust to the screen. With brilliant execution, Time Regained realizes the mixture of space and time, of image and memory, which flows throughout Proust's multi-volume "Remembrance of Things Past. " Aided by an outstanding cast of international film stars, including Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Emmanuelle Beart, and Vincent Perez, Ruiz has made a glowing reverie on a passing age that both overwhelms and entertains. Time Regained (the title of Marcel Proust's last volume) opens in 1922, as Proust is on his deathbed, looking through photos and remembering his life. Gradually, we watch as his own experiences give way to the characters in his novel - fiction eclipses reality. Ruiz, with incredible visual dexterity, shows how the author's creations combine with his own experiences, like slides projected on to the wall of his room. Memories of the idyllic days of the lost paradise that was Proust's childhood alternate with rich recollections of his life in fin de siecle Parisian society. The drama of the Great War, examined in the context of spectacular soirees and grand parties, becomes in Ruiz's hands an elaborate comedy of manners. In Time Regained, Ruiz discovers the impossible-the intangible timelessness that was the object of Proust's novels, blending both the baroque and the surreal. The result is a montage of moving snapshots and feverish dreams that makes the film the ultimate in Proustian cinema, succeeding magnificently where other adaptations of his work have failed. Enriched by stellar performances, Time Regained is a "gorgeous, meticulously crafted spectacle" (Jack Matthews, NY Daily News) that is presented here for the first time, in letterboxed format.