Film: Last Year In Marienbad
Year of production: 1961
UK Release date: 8th July 2011
Distributor: BFI
Certificate: U
Running time: 94 mins
Director: Alain Resnais
Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff, Françoise Bertin, Luce Garcia-Ville
Genre: Drama/Mystery/Romance
Format: Cinema
Country of Production: France/Italy
Language: French
Review by: Anna Attallah
Baffling and enchanting critics in equal measure, whether Last Year In Marienbad leaves you bewildered or firmly under its spell, it is a cinematic experience that cannot be ignored. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this icon of European art house cinema influenced countless films, including Vertigo and The Shining, with a tale that is both enigmatically dreamlike and just plain weird.
In the beautifully intricate corridors and stately rooms of an imposing baroque hotel, a nameless stranger, credited as X (Georgio Albertazzi), stalks the elegant woman A (Delphine Seyrig), who he claims he had a love affair with the previous year.
As the story is built, layer upon layer, rotating seamlessly between the past and present, we learn that she supposedly promised X a year ago that after a year had passed they would meet again and run away together.
Shadowed by another sinister man who may or may not be her husband (Sacha Pitoëff), the woman vehemently denies she ever made such a promise, or, indeed, that they know each other at all, as fact and fiction become increasingly blurred.
Men in tuxedoes robotically fire pistols in an unexplained shooting gallery, elegantly dressed guests inexplicably freeze in mid-conversation and the layout of the hotel and gardens is constantly shape-shifting (the action was shot in three different locations).
Whilst events intensify and the flashbacks become even more surreal and threatening, the action builds to a dramatic crescendo, posing more questions than it answers...
This film tore up the cinematic rulebook in 1961 and is still provoking debate and dividing opinions fifty years later. Like all works of modern art, there are those who dismiss it as pretentious nonsense and those who claim it is a masterpiece, but even on a purely cinematic level, you cannot fail to be impressed by the way the camera transforms into an artist’s brush in the hands of Alain Resnais and his cinematographer Sasha Vierny. Long tracking shots and disjointed flashbacks create impressions and images which question whether the narrator’s memory is accurate or if he is making it up as he goes along. Unsettling organ music heightens the feeling of oppression, as the hotel, which should ooze glamour and sophistication, instead becomes an ominous prison populated by gorgeously dressed mannequins. The narration itself is also musical, elegantly poetic and endlessly cyclical, it rarely stops and has a hypnotic quality which heightens the disconcerting sense that this is all a dream – or a nightmare.
It is clear that many horror films owe a certain debt to Last Year In Marienbad, which shows that subtle tension can be created easily without scary CGI effects with something as simple as a woman and a bed. We can recognise the lingering long shots of the hotel’s corridors in The Shining and A’s ambiguous lover M, played by Sacha Pitoëff, wouldn’t look out of place as Dracula with his corpse-like looks and icy demeanour. Georgio Albertazzi seems innocent enough as the gloomy narrator, yet even he takes on a menacing air as we begin to question his motives and even his sanity when he becomes more and more insistent in his pursuit of Delphine Seyrig. It is a credit to her charisma that she doesn’t fade into the background; having minimal dialogue, in comparison to Georgio Albertazzi, she is practically silent for the whole film. Nevertheless, she is not just a seductive bit of eye candy dressed in striking outfits (designed by none other than Coco Chanel), she is an accomplished actress who drives most of the disquieting tension of the plot.
Given that the occupants of the hotel are so mannequin-like it is no surprise that the film recently served as inspiration for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel Spring/Summer 2011 collection, where the models strutted their stuff on a catwalk based on Marienbad’s immaculate geometric garden. This is the setting of the famous still where the people have shadows, yet the trees and shrubs do not, and it is these experimental touches which root this world in a sort of hallucinogenic reality.
Sacha Pitoëff is constantly shown playing what appears to be a completely pointless game of chance – a version of pick-up sticks which any 5-year-old could master. It is, however, an ancient Chinese game called “Nim”, which requires an enormous amount of mathematical precision and skill. This is clearly a sly wink to the audience from Resnais, a small reminder that although we suspect this is all just random self-indulgence, it has in fact been meticulously planned.
Last Year In Marienbad may have popularised a surrealist aesthetic which now seems dated, but it is also an aesthetic which walks a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous. Whether Resnais succeeds is open to everyone’s interpretation, and it is this that gives beauty to this cult classic. A film that forces you to engage and puzzle over what it’s all about. One thing is certain, this is a film made to be seen on the big screen – and it’s a trance-like trip that is well worth it. AA
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