Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – A. Resnais

I watched this again in August 2019 and must say that the cinematography and tracking shots by Sacha Vierny are frankly amazing -- worth sitting through even as you scratch your head.  I also found this earlier review that didn't make it to the blog somehow.

Seeing this head-scratcher again in the internet age (and in a restored print) is an entirely different experience.  Before, I had known about Robbe-Grillet (and read The Erasers for a class) and so had some entry point into conceptualizing the film (as an out-of-order narrative with an unreliable narrator who changes the rules as he goes along). But now, a cascade of theories and thoughts drenches me as I flit from webpage to webpage (and watch the brief essay/doco available as a bonus on the DVD). So, as X pursues A in the grand hotel with M watching and a variety of zombified upper crusties play parlour games, is there some symbolism involved in her black dress vs. white dress? Why does M always win the pick-up sticks game? Wherefore the gunplay and can A's death really be reversed by our authorial X? Is everyone's memory (Resnais's favorite theme) faulty, pliable, prologue, fantasy? Ultimately, the film may be more fun to think about afterward than to endure. And, of course, there's no right answer.