Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
If you think 2001: A Space Odyssey was divisive when it came out, then odds are you haven't heard of Last Year of Marienbad. If film critics were ever at the risk of getting into a fist fight, it was when this film was released. In fact, while Kubrick's magnus opus has now been hailed as an untouchable masterpiece for quite a while, the jury is still pretty much out on Last Year at Marienbad. Not where I'm concerned. I believe this film is a masterpiece, an achievement so entirely unique, it is without precedent or follow-up, and completely transcends all the other arts contributing to film-making, to be pure, unadulterated cinema.
First things first, though. What is Last Year at Marienbad about? Good question! Nobody knows the answer. No, not even the screen-writer. Alain Robbe-Grillet and director Alain Resnais famously couldn't agree on what is going on in the film, fueling the controversy surrounding it. The story, which the film may or may not have, centers (or does it?) around a man and a woman who may or may not have had an affair the previous year in the then Czechoslovakian spa town of Marienbad, assuming the two even met at all, that is. Starting to see what had critics tearing out their hair.
The film is a coup de grace for the French New Wave, pushing not only the boundaries of film-making in general but that of the current as well. It is the work of highly influential director, Alain Resnais, whose uncontested masterpiece is the 1959 Hiroshima mon amour, a film sometimes credited as the opening salvo of the Nouvelle Vague. Resnais disagreed over the alleged plot of Last Year at Marienbad with essential Nouveau Roman writer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, who penned a script that is either masterful, or incomprehensible drivel, depending on whom you ask. The cinematographer Sacha Vierny is another important figure of 20th European cinema, renown not only for his collaboration with Resnais, with whom he worked on ten films including Hiroshima mon amour, but also for that with Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero's Books), Luis Buñuel (Belle de jour) or experimental Chilean director, Raoul Ruiz.
Written by a proponent of a radical literary current and directed by a prominent figure of a radical cinematic movement, Last Year of Marienbad is as bold and utterly unconventional as expected, though everything about it still defies expectations even over four decades after its release. That is because both the praise and the derision of the film are equally accurate. It really doesn't make any sense and it is because it's not trying to, quite the opposite, in fact, focusing instead on depicting of the lack of logic and surreal feel of dreams. It is perhaps the most exact recreation of the working of the subconscious ever put to film. It even devolves into the sensation of a fevered dream at times.
Last Year of Marienbad is the true child of the European culture that birthed the surrealism in art, illustrating the mid-20th century intellectual obsession with dreams, psycho-analysis, hyper-realities and the projection of the inner workings of the human mind onto the outside world. On a meta-textual level, it is hard to conceive a more apt film summary of the European art of the 20th century. It even shares its contradictory nature.
For a film about lack of logic, Last Year of Marienbad is very precise, technically flawless, more so than Resnais' other films, with a geometrical shot composition, polished within an inch of its celluloid. Vierny's cinematography is a clear black-and-white with the respective non-colors standing out without wavering and with few nuances. The films revolves around a set of frequent cinematic motifs: the mirror, the maze, continuum of reflections. It is also a meditation on the subjective nature of story-telling and character perception.
The study of perception is several fold: of reality, of self, of interpersonal relationships, of interraciton with inanimate objects, of the past. On this last count, Resnais draws back on his experimenting with flashbacks, which he first tried in Hiroshima mon amour. His use of flashbacks is literal, as he inserts only brief ones to suggest the subjective understanding of time by the memory. Time, constantly shifting in the film, is not an authorial, indisputable concept here, but a very personal one, emanating solely from the flow of characters' memory. Above all, Last Year of Marienbad is a study in subjectivity and nothing is more subjective than our dreams.
This puzzling film is edited in a hypnotic, fluid manner that contributes to the dream-like experience of the whole, while also giving the spectator the time to take in all its intricate details. There is a maze-like pace to the film that is more illogical than uneven and is in keeping with the mystifying nature of the movie. Only a film so technically accomplished, from Resnais' whimsical yet confident direction to the complex camera work and compelling performances, could appear to be so nonsensical.
Last Year of Marienbad is available on Criterion.
If you think 2001: A Space Odyssey was divisive when it came out, then odds are you haven't heard of Last Year of Marienbad. If film critics were ever at the risk of getting into a fist fight, it was when this film was released. In fact, while Kubrick's magnus opus has now been hailed as an untouchable masterpiece for quite a while, the jury is still pretty much out on Last Year at Marienbad. Not where I'm concerned. I believe this film is a masterpiece, an achievement so entirely unique, it is without precedent or follow-up, and completely transcends all the other arts contributing to film-making, to be pure, unadulterated cinema.
First things first, though. What is Last Year at Marienbad about? Good question! Nobody knows the answer. No, not even the screen-writer. Alain Robbe-Grillet and director Alain Resnais famously couldn't agree on what is going on in the film, fueling the controversy surrounding it. The story, which the film may or may not have, centers (or does it?) around a man and a woman who may or may not have had an affair the previous year in the then Czechoslovakian spa town of Marienbad, assuming the two even met at all, that is. Starting to see what had critics tearing out their hair.
The film is a coup de grace for the French New Wave, pushing not only the boundaries of film-making in general but that of the current as well. It is the work of highly influential director, Alain Resnais, whose uncontested masterpiece is the 1959 Hiroshima mon amour, a film sometimes credited as the opening salvo of the Nouvelle Vague. Resnais disagreed over the alleged plot of Last Year at Marienbad with essential Nouveau Roman writer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, who penned a script that is either masterful, or incomprehensible drivel, depending on whom you ask. The cinematographer Sacha Vierny is another important figure of 20th European cinema, renown not only for his collaboration with Resnais, with whom he worked on ten films including Hiroshima mon amour, but also for that with Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero's Books), Luis Buñuel (Belle de jour) or experimental Chilean director, Raoul Ruiz.
Written by a proponent of a radical literary current and directed by a prominent figure of a radical cinematic movement, Last Year of Marienbad is as bold and utterly unconventional as expected, though everything about it still defies expectations even over four decades after its release. That is because both the praise and the derision of the film are equally accurate. It really doesn't make any sense and it is because it's not trying to, quite the opposite, in fact, focusing instead on depicting of the lack of logic and surreal feel of dreams. It is perhaps the most exact recreation of the working of the subconscious ever put to film. It even devolves into the sensation of a fevered dream at times.
Last Year of Marienbad is the true child of the European culture that birthed the surrealism in art, illustrating the mid-20th century intellectual obsession with dreams, psycho-analysis, hyper-realities and the projection of the inner workings of the human mind onto the outside world. On a meta-textual level, it is hard to conceive a more apt film summary of the European art of the 20th century. It even shares its contradictory nature.
For a film about lack of logic, Last Year of Marienbad is very precise, technically flawless, more so than Resnais' other films, with a geometrical shot composition, polished within an inch of its celluloid. Vierny's cinematography is a clear black-and-white with the respective non-colors standing out without wavering and with few nuances. The films revolves around a set of frequent cinematic motifs: the mirror, the maze, continuum of reflections. It is also a meditation on the subjective nature of story-telling and character perception.
The study of perception is several fold: of reality, of self, of interpersonal relationships, of interraciton with inanimate objects, of the past. On this last count, Resnais draws back on his experimenting with flashbacks, which he first tried in Hiroshima mon amour. His use of flashbacks is literal, as he inserts only brief ones to suggest the subjective understanding of time by the memory. Time, constantly shifting in the film, is not an authorial, indisputable concept here, but a very personal one, emanating solely from the flow of characters' memory. Above all, Last Year of Marienbad is a study in subjectivity and nothing is more subjective than our dreams.
This puzzling film is edited in a hypnotic, fluid manner that contributes to the dream-like experience of the whole, while also giving the spectator the time to take in all its intricate details. There is a maze-like pace to the film that is more illogical than uneven and is in keeping with the mystifying nature of the movie. Only a film so technically accomplished, from Resnais' whimsical yet confident direction to the complex camera work and compelling performances, could appear to be so nonsensical.
Last Year of Marienbad is available on Criterion.