WilliamJones's Full Review: Last Year at Marienbad
Man, am I excited. I was just browsing through the TV Guide and I noticed that the cable channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is showing Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961) this Friday at 6:00 p.m. PST.
I've seen the movie before. Once in a theater and once on video (Bravo showed the film years ago). But now I have the opportunity to tape it for myself. If you have never seen the movie (and it is a somewhat obscure title that I had to add to Epinions); if you're a fan of the art of motion pictures, you cannot miss this. It is vital that you see this movie, think about it, ponder it, be confused by, hate it even, but YOU MUST SEE IT!
Here's how TV Guide describes it:
Last Year at Marienbad - Drama BW 1:40
(French-Italian; 1961)
Film exercise by Alain Resnais concerning what happened to three people (Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoeff) at a baroque hotel. Obscure and difficult; requires enormous patience.
Notice the comment: "obscure and difficult" and "requires enormous patience". Of course they don't talk about the intellectual fruits to be had if one actually cares to think about what is presented. But TV Guide is correct. The film is difficult and does require patience. Don't most things that are really worthy of our consideration?
We're not just talking about some mindless entertainment here. We're talking about a movie that asks you to think. Look at it like a mystery. Everyone loves a mystery, right? Well, would you want to watch a mystery where the solution was obvious and required no thought? Of course not. You want it to involve you, to stimulate you, to challenge you. Think of "Last Year at Marienbad" that way and you'll at least get through it (in a very real sense it is a mystery). I guarantee you this: you've never seen anything like it.
Up for the challenge? (Those of you who have seen it and understand it completely are excused.) Terrific, let's go.
Last Year at Marienbad's basic plot goes like this: A year ago, a man X (Giorgio Albertazzi) met a woman A (Delphine Seyrig) at Marienbad in a hotel where they were both guests. A is married to M (Sacha Pitoeff), but has an affair with X. Now before you say, "What's with all these letters, don't the characters have names?" let me tell you - the characters do not have names and that is how they are listed in the credits. That's all you need to know about plot. Don't get hung up on plot. The insights to be derived from this film come from somewhere else.
Resnais is dealing with memory here. The movie can be seen as pictures from a person's memory, a completely internalized monologue. We're looking at the subjective recreation of a past in someone's (X's) mind.
But memory is a tricky thing. We don't always remember things exactly as they happened. This is why sometimes eyewitness testimony in a trial isn't accurate. Sometimes we see things as we want to believe they happened and not as they really did, especially when there is some tragedy associated with that memory.
One thing is certain, however. The past cannot be changed. No matter how much X tries, no matter how much he may wish things were different, the inescapable fact is there's no going back. In the movie this is symbolized by the matchstick game. This is a game that X plays with M, but which X can never win. The game has a mathematical form that I don't entirely remember (it's been a while since I've seen the film). But I do remember that X never wins, even though he tries very hard.
I've really just scratched the surface of this brilliant movie. I could talk about the baroque hotel and it's corridors (like the brain), the frozen guests that shows how specific details of the past are sometimes "frozen" in our minds, fragmentation, denial, wish-fulfillment, and on and on.
But you need to see it for yourself. Then come back and tell me all about it.
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