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L'Année Dernière à Marienbad
Last Year at Marienbad
France/Italy 1961
produced by
Pierre Courau, Raymond Froment for Cocinor, Terra-Film, Cormoran Film, Precitel, Como Film, Argos-Films, les Films Tamara, Cinétel, Silver Films, Cineriz
directed by Alain Resnais
starring Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoeff, Francoise Bertin, Luce Garcia-Ville, Héléna Kornel, Francoise Spira, Karin Toche-Mittler, Pierre Barbaud, Wilhelm von Deek, Jean Lanier, Gérard Lorin, Davide Montemuri, Gilles Quéant, Gabriel Werner
written by Alain Robbe-Grillet, music by Francis Seyrig
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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At a posh hotel, a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) spots a woman (Delphine
Seyrig), who he thinks was his holiday romance at a similar hotel, last
year at Marienbad. She strongly denies that and asks him to leave her
alone repeatedly, but he tells her the whole story of their romance
nevertheless, how they met under some statues for the first time, and she
saw to it that they bumped into in numerous times every day afterwards,
and when she asked him to stay away from her, he knew that she only did
that to calm her escort (Sacha Pitoeff), who might or might not be her
husband. Eventually, the man felt encouraged by the woman to follow her
to her room and rape her while her escort was out. Upon his return, the
escort misjudged the situation and shot the woman dead out of jealousy ... But
no, the man interrupts himself, this is not how the story went - even
though the woman starts to remember, which would mean she is dead by now -
and he tells the story how he and the woman finally ran off together ... Even
though in writing the plot of this film sounds incredibly thin, it's also
a plot that totally defies interpretation, because it could mean all and
nothing, it could mean that all of the involved are ghosts condemned to
relive their past again and again, it could be his or her afterlife, it
could be a mere nightmare, or a romantic fantasy, and it could be a
hundred other things as well. The direction of the film perfectly mirrors
the otherworldly aspects of the script: Settings and outfits often
inexplicably change during scenes without interrupting theactual goings-on
in the slightest, even the two temporal levels seem interchangeable every
now and again (and seem to shift during scenes, semingly pointless
sequences are repeated again and again in different contexts as are chunks
of dialogue, extras and even key players often freeze in scenes when they
are not needed, as if the whole thing was a photo novel, the actors
movements often seem artificially as if they are just marionets caught in
their own story, the sets seem a bit too controlled and composed to appear
as natural, and every now and again, the organ filmscore blocks out
all dialogue, even during key scenes. This all leads to a film experience
that's pretty much one of its kind, something completely out of the world
that's as weird as it's fascinating, and that's simply put a masterpiece.
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find Last Year at Marienbad at adultvideouniverse.com
