L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961)'s comments

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chryzsh

Absolutely incomprehensible.

8 years 5 months ago

sureup

Mesmerizing is the best word to describe this movie. But I can't really say I understood it in any way, shape, or form.

Still I liked it.

12 years 3 months ago

fonz

In which Christopher Nolan stalks Jackie-O around a mind palace whilst Lurch looks dispassionately on.

8 years 2 months ago

TheMajor

A very relaxing and good movie, but a little repetitive, and I'm not just referring to the beginning.

12 years 11 months ago

dhan_bo

Beautiful piece of French decadence with a lot of geometry, adultery and match games.

And yes, it's hard to watch.

9 years 6 months ago

humorme

This one really puts the "vague" in "nouvelle vague".

2 years ago

Like a stereotype of pretentious French art house films. Almost at self parody levels.

Still.. very nice cinematography, kind of cool in a way and had potential. I lap this sort of crap up normally, but it got a bit wearing. Needed a twist of interest to draw you in more.

7 years 9 months ago

Siskoid

While it's in line with Alain Resnais' style, Last Year in Marienbad (L'Année dernière à Marienbad) feels much more like it's its writer Alain Robbe-Grillet's show. It certainly has all the hallmarks of his "nouveau roman", which I'd hate to reduce to "deconstructionism", at least uses the novel's narrative elements in strange and unusual ways, often as overtly mechanical devices, revealing the under-structure of writing itself. We might interpret Marienbad as a romance where the interior is made exterior, or a ghost story whose dirge-like music promises to reveal a tragic tale, but nouveau roman isn't really about that. It is a play on structure, pure and simple, and the effects derived, while potentially pregnant with meaning, are a side-effect and not a goal. Filled with repeated images and text, Marienbad is set in a dream-like, baroque hotel where characters stand transfixed until robotically activated (I don't think I can use the word "needed"), a woman (Delphine Seyrig) is trapped in the narrative controlled by a would-be lover (Giorgio Albertazzi), a sort of narrator with the role's attendant powers, an author trying to wrangle the ending he wants from characters by amending history, repeated, modified, unclear memory. All style and the substance is left to the audience, but happily, the film's rich ambiguities gives us what we need to impose our own narrative. Whether this is an authorial violence like the one on the screen is debatable.

2 years ago

Jeckit

So, the game they play is called Nim. And yes, after knowing how it works you can't lose vs someone who doesn't know the game.

3 years 9 months ago

onedarkdog

!m 45 minutes in and i had to come here to see what others experienced, i am going to make it to the end, just dont know what im looking at. I think its the connection between the main characters i dont like, everything else is beautiful, if not a little pretentious. I shall persevere.

update: Well its was work getting to the end, but it was worth it.

4 years 6 months ago

Windill

Annoying movie in which the narrator struggles with the recollection of a love story that took place last year in Marienbad - or was it Fredericksbad... (Who cares?)
Repetitions are annoying, the main voice is annoying, the music is annoying.
The film stands out for its ambition to recreate the mazes of memory. But it sucks.

5 years 1 month ago

Cinemaste

Bought the Blu-ray and finally watched it yesterday evening. The movie is strikingly beautiful visually and, to a slightly lesser extent, auditory.

Without giving away anything I can safely say you will not forget this movie once you've watched it, even if it's not your cup of tea.

9 years 7 months ago

beehivespirit

mind-melting; the very essence of cinema

Kubrick and Lynch owe this one a huge debt for sure

10 years 8 months ago

fnfn

I was browsing last year's Chanel collection and had to refer back to this film especially to a lot of sequences at the end where rooms and costumes become increasingly discontinuous. A very stylish and provocative film for anyone who can appreciate the visual elements of good film. As for the narrative, it tries to recreate (in surreal fashion) the way the human mind recalls events but Resnais himself reflected that he found Marienbad to do this only primitively.

Definitely a lot more going on than just paint drying.

11 years 11 months ago

Dieguito

Formidable, brilliant!! One of the most beautiful cinematographies I've ever seen and an incredible shooting style. Very mysterious, amazing soundtrack, great acting! Totally surrealistic, only for perspective audiences..

12 years 5 months ago