2015 feels like a banner year for cinephiles hoping to finally get their hands on long dormant or buried treasures. The Apu Trilogy finally hit screens and Blu-ray this year and Kino Lorber is doing some outstanding work on the home video front for cineastes. Later this year they’ll finally deliver Jacques Rivette’s long-awaited “Out 1” — which is playing at BAM in New York now — and this week they are releasing another long-out-of-print film from another French New Wave master: Alain Renais’ “Je t’aime Je t’aime.” Known for cinema classics like “Hiroshima Mon Amour” and “Last Year at Marienbad,” Renais’ sixth film is haunting tale of romantic obsession and time travel, a traumatic break-up caught in an endless loop. It is science fiction as only Resnais could have made it.
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Long unavailable in the U.S., and re-released theatrically last year, Kino Lorber’s release marks the first time that this important film has been available on home video in the U.S. Here’s the official synopsis: Claude Ridder (Claude Rich) is recovering from a failed suicide attempt after the collapse of his relationship with Catrine (Olga Georges-Picot). He is approached by an obscure scientific lab that wants him to participate in the human trials of a new time-travel device. The test will send him back one year’s time, for one minute. But the machine goes haywire, and Ridder gets caught in a never-ending series of temporal leaps, reliving his tragic life out of sequence. His past is a nightmare he is trying to escape, and the only exit might be his death.
To win the movie on Blu-ray, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, tweet: "I want to win Je t’aime, je t’aime from @ThePlaylist. #WinThePlaylistContest," and include this link. Your final step: just email us your tweet, with your full name and address, and tell us your favorite French New Wave film. Good luck!
"Je t’aime, je t’aime" is available on Blu-Ray/DVD now. Watch the trailer below.
Update: Contest closed, winners will be contacted via email.