Alain Resnais's Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968)

Je t'aime, je t'aime is a science fiction film, the screenplay written by both Alain Resnais and Jacques Sternberg over five years. Resnais insisted that Claude Rich be the principal actor, and no one but him.

Claude Ridder (Claude Rich) fails to kill himself and after leaving the clinic where he was recovering he is picked up by researchers and, on his agreement (what has a suicidal case to lose?) taken to a scientific research building in the countryside. Here he is told that a mouse has been tested, taken to the past, and has survived: Claude asks how the researchers know that it happened, which is of course a perfectly valid question, and the researchers have to admit that they don't speak Mouse so communication is a problem. But what has Claude to lose? These experiments only being in their initial stages, this is just a visit to the past one year ago, and for a minute: on asking what are his chances of survival, the answer is 100%: well, they've only tested this on mice before.

And so Claude takes the injection, enters a timecraft which resembles a gigantic artichoke with various wires attached and huge straws sticking out of the top, and (with a mouse at the side of him) goes into the past. The problem is that the experiment goes wrong and he only briefly comes back.

Claude's partner was Catrine (Olga Georges-Picot), and Resnais's film now moves into many flashbacks, many repeated ones of Claude and Catrine's holiday a year before on the Riviera, with Claude diving but Catrine not wanting to: strangely, Claude finds a mouse scampering on the beach. There follow a number of scenes leading up to Claude's attempted suicide, his absolute boredom with work and its constant repetiton, Catrine's death in Glasgow and Claude's inability to tolerate it, leading to him taking a gun and misfiring.

But now? The researchers leave the building and find that Claude has returned, only it seems as though he may have succeeded in his attempt this time. I may be wrong, but I see this as one of Resnais's less successful experiments with time.