Toute la mémoire du monde

The Millions

Few films are so literal and so cryptic (in both senses of the term) as Resnais's Toute la mémoire du monde [All the Memory in the World, 1956]. To watch this picture is to enter a fortress, the film suddenly exposed by the light of day.

The edicts of kings float on water.

Resnais's beloved Mandrake, ici roi de la magie, fighting in "the war in the world with x-dimensions."

Toute la mémoire du monde is also itself a museum-piece on the Bibliothèque, itself likened to a museum, as it existed and operated in 1956. The card-catalogue is characterized as "the brain" of this nervous network.

(Worth mentioning too: the film showcases volumes from Chris Marker's "Collection Petite Planète." In a sense the star of the film is Lucia Bosè.)

The 'key' to the Bibliothèque is its paradoxical nature: popular accessibility in a fortress of secrecy.

Final words spoken in the film: "Il s'appelle 'le bonheur'." — "It's called 'happiness'." •

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