skip to main |
skip to sidebar
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
![]()
Film: Kaboom
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 10th June 2011
Distributor: Artificial Eye
Certificate: TBC
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Gregg Araki
Starring: Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett, Chris Zylka, Roxane Mesquida, Juno Temple
Genre: Comedy/Horror/Mystery/Sci-Fi
Format: DVD
Country of Production: USA/France
Language: English
Review by: Anna Attallah
Written and directed by veteran of the New Queer Cinema scene Gregg Araki, this LSD infused slice of science fiction won the first ever Queer Palm award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Having made his name tackling shocking subjects (from drugs, kinky sex and Neo-Nazis in his Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy to child sexual abuse in the critically acclaimed Mysterious Skin), Araki now branches out into underground cults and conspiracy theories in the psychedelic college comedy Kaboom.
Smith (Thomas Dekker) is a typical college student – or, more precisely, what a typical college student wishes they were: a person whose degree constitutes zero studying and a hundred percent hard partying. His days are spent lusting after his surfer roommate, Thor, and hanging out with his sardonic best friend, Stella (Haley Bennett). So far so ordinary, until Smith receives a postcard stating he is “the chosen one” and people from his dreams disconcertingly start popping up in his waking life.
These include Stella’s lesbian love interest, Lorelei (Roxanne Mesquida), a witch with rejection issues (don’t ask), and an ethereal redhead who introduces herself by vomiting on Smith’s shoes at a party. After ingesting a drug-laced cookie, Smith heads off to have technicolour sex with a voracious man-eater named London (Juno Temple). When she kicks him out of her room, he and the mysterious red-headed girl are chased by strange men in animal masks through the college grounds. The girl is brutally stabbed in the head, but when Smith wakes up alone, he isn’t sure if this escapade was real or simply a very bad trip.
It transpires that the red-headed girl is named Madeleine and she is involved with a secret underground cult called the ‘New Order’. Unbeknownst to Smith, his involvement with this cult is a lot closer to home than he realises. It is only when his friends and family start disappearing that Smith discovers time is running out not just for himself, but for the whole world...
It is clear that this is a film which is going through a serious identity crisis. Is it an irreverent comedy tackling teenage angst, a journey of sexual discovery, a horror film, or a tense thriller? Araki seems to have given up on trying to weave these different styles together and instead has just thrown them all at the screen and hoped for the best, resulting in a film that seems far too amateurish for someone who is directing their tenth feature. Although Araki’s sense of fun and unpretentious attitude shine through, it’s hard not to get the feeling that he is trying to do a Donnie Darko, but falling short.
Firstly, there are the endless “Am I awake or am I dreaming?” sequences which are meant to blur fact and fiction, but, in the end, only serve to make the viewer switch off, as inevitably the scene they are watching usually ends in Smith gasping and spluttering as he wakes. The chaotic conspiracy theory sub-plot also suffers from a lack of development; it is simply tacked on at the end in a slap-dash manner which seems to leave the characters just as confused as the audience. The mystery of Madeleine and Smith’s involvement in the cult is revealed seemingly in the space of twenty minutes, where Smith can barely keep up with the speed of events he is being forced to explain and the camera jerkily jumps from one unlikely link to the other.
The disordered structure isn’t helped by the fact that Araki uses every horror cliché in the book, with enough “he’s-behind-you!” moments to rival the number of scenes where characters start awake. In one scene in particular, Stella is forced to defend herself when her one time lover, Lorelei, turns murderous. The fact that Lorelei is a witch with supernatural powers gives endless scope for paranormal creepiness, but their exchange simply descends into a bland parody of the Wizard Of Oz, with Lorelei being defeated by water from the bathroom tap. Araki does occasionally produce some genuine tension, particularly when Smith is running for his life from the animal-masked members of the New Order, but hardcore horror fans will barely raise an eyebrow at most throughout.
Despite some dubious material, the cast take it all in their stride, with Thomas Dekker giving a sincere performance which captures the vulnerability of adolescence. Juno Temple is also worth a mention as she navigates her way through countless X-rated on-screen orgasms as if she’s been doing it all her life, confidently playing a part that would have been too out-there for many other young actresses to handle.
Apart from a great cast, Araki has also chosen the perfect soundtrack to compliment this off-beat adventure, with songs from popular Indie bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The xx to angsty favourites Placebo.
Although his efforts to charm the teenage audience he represented back in the 1990s seem forced, it is when he is in full college comedy mode that Araki is at his best, with some genuinely funny dialogue and sharp observations of college existence mostly courtesy of Hayley Bennett’s expert deadpan delivery. Nevertheless, you can’t help coming away wishing he’d ditched the senseless pseudo science fiction and stuck to his strengths.
Kaboom is refreshingly raw; a neon coloured foray into sex and sci-fi which doesn’t take itself too seriously. The script sparkles with some snappy one-liners and there is plenty of good-looking flesh on show, but even this cannot save the film from a clumsy plot which goes into chaotic overdrive as the sex gets increasingly weirder, the explanations get increasingly improbable, and the film collapses under its own ridiculousness. AA
