Alain Resnais inundates this pensive political thriller with homely details: the tidy and deliberate unpacking of an underground agent at the finish of a routine, eventless, perilous mission; the exchanged intimacies and cups of coffee among long-time comrades; their plain, quiet sweaters and overcoats. Of course, Resnais is interested in more than meets the eye, in the mysteries inside and beyond the tangible mundanities. And Yves Montand's face — a worn, pliable, cracked rubber mask — supplies a nonstop, silent testimony to the accumulated weight of past experiences and unarticulated feelings in the character of this Spanish Civil War refugee, still, thirty years later, carrying on the opposition to Franco, smuggling propaganda pamphlets across the French border, growing much older and gaining no ground, running out of time. This character, a downcast, undecorated hero who comes up to many of the standards of his illustrious countryman, Miguel de Unamuno, continues to adhere to his former commitments, follows form and obeys orders, even while all of his supports give way, his beliefs dissolve, his superiors lose faith in him, the adolescent hotbloods of the New Left taunt him, and his comrades drop dead of heart failure. Written by Jorge Semprun; with Ingrid Thulin and Genevieve Bujold. (1966) — Duncan Shepherd