#93: Last Year In Marienbad

Last Year In Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)

Alan Resnais is one of the most notable directors of the French New Wave movement, and one of the best to bring unconventional storytelling techniques and ambiguity of meaning to film. Marienbad takes place in a gothically decorated luxury hotel, with lots of smooth rectangular surfaces and neo-classical marble statues scattered around. A man and a woman meet, and the man claims they met at the same place a year ago, fell in love and agreed to run off together the following year. She can't remember what happened, and as he explores his memory, he's not as certain about his memory as he was either.

There are lots of cuts back to the meeting of the past year, but presented only as the characters recall them, and in stream of consciousness fashion. For instance, there was an incident where the two made love. When she starts to remember it she suddenly acts shocked and drops her glass. He remembers it being a consensual encounter, then starts to remember but refuses the possibility that he forced himself on her. Also, he remembers it as being warm and summerlike outside, but the other guests at the hotel say that he wasn't even there last year, and all the fountains were frozen over at the time. What really happened between these two, or did it even happen at all? The movie explores the uncertainty and ambiguity of memory, which is really more realistic and interesting than the tendency in most movies for people to remember events exactly and accurately to the tiniest detail.

It all works and comes off beautifully because of the presentation style and the simultaneous beauty and emptiness of the setting. I'd recommend it to anybody who really likes French films with unconventional storytelling.

Rating: **** / 5

72/101

Next: Ikiru, Rashomon, The Conformist

New films:

Animal Kingdom: 0/10

A tedious movie filled with predictable mob movie cliches. None of the characters are interesting, and nothing happens in the movie that's interesting. The title 'Animal Kingdom' refers to their attempt at predator/prey relationships to use as symbolism to explain how the world works. It doesn't work. Nothing in the film works. The one thing in the film I didn't hate was a good performance by the main character's grandmother. The rest of the film is filled with boring, predictable garbage and pointless killings just for killing's sake.

I want you to understand I am saying this without any slight inflection of a 'Comic book guy' voice. I seriously mean it. "Worst…movie…ever!"