Last Year at Marienbad [VHS]

Last Year at Marienbad [VHS]
by Alain Resnais

Last Year at Marienbad [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Delphine Seyrig; Giorgio Albertazzi
Director: Alain Resnais
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Running Time: 93 minutes
Release Date: 1994-12-01
Audience Rating: Unrated
Publisher: Timeless Multimedia
Studio: Timeless Multimedia

VHS Movie Reviews of Last Year at Marienbad [VHS]

Movie Review: Lugubrious
Summary: 3 Stars

'Last Year at Marienbad' is an extremely well-made and stylish film. I intuit that it may also contain some meaning of depth behind it's mesmerizing symbolism. But the plain fact is that the gloom of this movie was utterly suffocating to me. Not pessimistic, mind you, or nihilistic, either, as I perceived it. More like spending a long afternoon in a funeral parlor, then discovering you were also going to have to spend the night.

Ambiguous, mysterious, hypnotic, and morbidly fascinating, the film reminded me of impressions I got from reading some of Poe's more morbid prose and poetry, in the sense of creating a lingering pall on the mind. The sheer relentlessness of mood which defines the film from the very start began to get under my skin in a significant way long before it was over.

Initially, the exquisite camera work, the haunting interiors, and the appearance and mannerisms of these "beautiful people" at an old fashioned resort, was enough to draw me in and keep me interested, although nothing very definite was actually transpiring in either action or dialog. Gradually, through repetition of fragmented scenes with slightly different emphasis or embellishments, we piece together the semblance or suggestion of a central story enmeshed in the tableaux and artificiality of this social group.

That a man and a woman may have had an indiscreet love affair seems to become more certain; deceit enters the picture, along with jealousy, and possibly violence. The woman seems to be imprisoned in this ice palace. The man has come, after an arduous search, to liberate her. But she is not convinced, and even disclaims any knowledge of these things.

What does it mean? Is it a dream? Are they truly alive? Is the resort a real place? Are they, along with all the other people and things in the story, merely symbols which represent the action of dark primal forces, which are enacting themselves through the impersonation of these idle rich?

As you ponder the meaning of it all, you may well be beguiled by the lavishness of the sets and the photogenic charm of the cast, but you may also begin to accumulate a clinging sense of dread, gloom, decay, and labyrinthine ambiguity. I haven't read any professional criticism to try and gain insight into the supposed meaning of the film, because I already know exactly the strong reaction it engendered in me. I felt after watching it that I had attended a funeral every day for a week.

Movie Review: A misunderstood film and not much fun to watch
Summary: 2 Stars

I believe critics have misunderstood this strange film, which is often said to be an essay on the psychology of memory and fantasy. Here is a different interpretation. Marienbad was written by French author Alain Robbe-Grillet in the late 1950's, a time when European intellectuals coming out of the Second World War were angrily disillusioned with the 'old European culture' represented in the movie by the vast magnificent chateaus of the kings (called here Marienbad but actually filmed in Nymphenburg and Schliessheim, the summer palaces of the Bavarian royal family). Anyone who has spent time in these old places, now hotels, knows the oppressive heaviness of their ornate decorations, the atmosphere of high ceilings and art and the weight of centuries encoded in their corridors. Robbe-Grillet and filmaker Resnais, all of whose previous films were were certainly political (holocaust, atomic bomb), then fill these suffocating halls with the descendents of those European wealthy classes, dressing them in tuxedos and Chanel gowns, living empty lives of card games and silence. There is a gesture towards a plot about some half forgotten relationship between the two protagonists but this seems only to further illustrate the disconnectedness of their lives; they have nothing better to do. The movie belongs to a postwar Europe seeing its own history as a failure. We are not supposed to identify with these people and we don't.

Robbe-Grillet all his life made a show of arrogance; when offered membership in the prestigious French Academy, he refused to cooperate with the ceremony. He wrote this movie script as an intensely hostile work which expresses rage and contempt towards a dead civilization and the people trained in its ways. Unfortunately, the hostility and bitterness are taken out on the filmgoing audience, who are forced to endure long repetitive descriptions of the stultifying decorations of the chateau, long repetitive card games where no one speaks, long camera pans of the plaster on the walls, all of which are intended to convey the meaninglessness of this way of life. The message is that these are people consigned to the dustbin of history, all the while perfectly coiffed. Their boredom becomes yours.

If this sounds like no fun to watch, you're right. The result, which some consider one of the great films of all time, in my opinion is an artistic failure, pretentious, self-indulgent, an "art experiment" gone bad. Resnais is overrated; he gets off lightly because he wears the mantle of the French "New Wave" and smokes those horrid little cigarettes, holding them sideways like Jean Paul Sartre.

Watching the film is a punishing experience. That this was nominated for an academy award for best script is mind boggling. I suspect that many critics feel obligated to imagine some transcendent meaning because they cannot accept that the only content is nihilism and boredom. At most this should have been somebody's class project in sophomore film school.

Or perhaps it should be used to interrogate prisoners instead of sleep deprivation. One reviewer here on Amazon said that the Almighty owed him 90 minutes added on his life in return for the torment of sitting through this. Amen.

Movie Review: Ghostly
Summary: 4 Stars

A great piece of French cinema, this film should not be overlooked. A simple yet elegant story of a man, a woman, and her lover. Almost ghostly in atmosphere in a somewhat gangsta sort of way. This film is as good as it gets technically and Criterion, as usual delivers another gem of a release. It may only be a one time affair for some, but I think most will be surprised by this smart gem and it will give it multiple viewings. Film 8/10 Pic quality 5/5 Audio 4.5/5 Extras 4/5

Movie Review: a very well known film is a great release
Summary: 4 Stars

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

"Last Year at Marienbad", directed by Alain Resnais, released in France as "L'Ann?e derni?re ? Marienbad" is a film about a man who attemps to convince a woman he just met that they had a love affair a year earlier. The film takes place at a Chateau and includes some very interesting scenes. There is a famous surreal scene with some people casting shadows while the surrounding trees do not. The film itself is very impressive and won many awards.

The Criteiron Collection version has some great special features and the packaging is very minimalist in style. The picture of the cover shown here does not do justice to its appearance. The release is a two disc set and includes a booklet with more material.

Disc one contains the film and the original theatrical tralier with a re-release trailer.
Disc two contains an exclusive interview with Alain Resnais, a new documentary on the film's production, an interview with film scholar, Ginette Vincendeau, and two documentaries by Resnais. "Toute la m?moire du monde" is a documentary about the National Library of France and has an in-depth tour of the stacks and how books are catalogued and shelved. The second documentary is "Le chant du Styr?ne" is about the molding of plastics. I found the documentary about the French National Library to be very interesting, in part, because I work in a college library.

This DVD set is the best version of the film available and a must for cinephiles.

Movie Review: Unique Film with Pristine Transfer
Summary: 5 Stars

(This review refers to the Blu-Ray edition) Criterion has done it again! The beautiful black and white imagery of this haunting film is presented in a flawless transfer. Incredibly sharp and detailed image for a nearly fifty year old film. The booklet has three or four interesting essays, plus there are the usual informative extras. There has been plenty written about the film, i.e. what it means, etc. so I won't go into that except to say that if you want to watch something totally different, then this film is for you. Fans of non-linear plots step to the front of the line! I also reccommend going to Roger Eberts site after you watch and read his essay under 'great movies'.

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Summary of Last Year at Marienbad [VHS]

One of the most ferociously iconoclastic and experimental films of the French New Wave, Alain Resnais's 1961 feature, winner of the grand prize at that year's Venice Film Festival, is based on a script by Alain Robbe-Grillet. At its center is what seems to be a simple but unanswerable puzzle: Did its protagonist (Giorgio Albertazzi) have an affair the year before with a woman (Delphine Seyrig) he just met (or possibly re-met) at his hotel? The inquiry becomes an unsettling experiment in flattening the dimensions of past, present, and future so that any difference between them becomes meaningless, while Resnais's coldly formal but oddly dreamlike geometric compositions make space itself seem a function of subjective memory. Add to that Resnais's trademark tracking shots--long, smooth, a visual correlative of a wordless feeling--and this is a film that truly gets under the skin in almost inexplicable ways. One of the most influential works of its time. --Tom Keogh

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