LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD Showing in ALAIN RESNAIS 100 Series at Film Forum
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“Masterpiece of masterpieces!” (Jonathan Rosenbaum), LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (France, 1961), directed by Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet, “is a sustained mood, an empty allegory, a choreographed moment outside time, and a shocking intimation of perfection.” (J. Hoberman).
A hypnotically beautiful puzzle box of a film, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD is one of the most influential in the history of cinema. In the it’s hypnotic treatment of space, time, and memory, it ushered in a new era of cinematic modernism. In a large international hotel in the European resort town of Marienbad, with a sumptuous but austere décor – a marble universe – a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) is convinced he met an enigmatic woman (Delphine Seyrig) the previous year at the same location, and perhaps had a flirtation. A second man (Sacha Pitoëff), possibly the woman's lover or husband, repeatedly intimidates the first man. Their relationships unfold through shards of flashbacks that never quite fit into place. LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD is famous for its enigmatic narrative structure, shunning the causal relationship between events.
Gartenberg Media distributes the 4K restoration of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD from Kino Lorber on Blu-ray, DVD, and as a downloadable HD file. In addition, several essential extras are included with the disk publication, which, taken together, greatly increase the appreciation of this groundbreaking film. One is the documentary MEMORIES OF LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, which reconstructs in chronological fashion Super8mm footage taken on the set of the film. Another insightful guide is a visual essay by curator James Quandt about the movie. Finally, TOUT LA MÉMOIRE DU MONDE, a short film made by Resnais in 1956, explores all the priceless archival treasures found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. As the voiceover narration poses the question of how humanity remembers itself, the foregrounding of the theme of memory in this film foreshadows a central concern Resnais revisits in LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD. As film critic Richard Brody notes in the following clip, Resnais views memory as a supreme function of political morality.