by Allan Fish
(France 1961 94m) DVD1/2
Aka. Last Year at Marienbad
Or was it Frederiksbad?
p Raymond Froment, Anatole Dauman d Alain Resnais w Alain Robbe-Grillet ph Sacha Vierny ed Henri Colpi, Jasmie Chasney m Francis Seyrig art Jacques Saulnier cos Coco Chanel, Bernard Evein
Delphine Seyrig (A), Giorgio Albertazzi (X), Sacha Pitoeff (M), Françoise Bertin, Luce Garcia-Villet, Héléna Korbel, François Spira, Karin Toche-Mittler, Pierre Barbaud,
L’Année Dernière à Marienbad is undoubtedly one of the most exasperating films ever made, but it is also undeniably one of the most original, going beyond surrealism to find a category all of its own. Everything that happens is perfectly plausible, it’s just that, well nothing really does happen, yet much takes place. That is the paradox of it.
Alain Resnais first came to prominence with his magisterial Holocaust documentary Nuit et Brouillard in 1955 before becoming one of the darlings of the intellgentsia with Hiroshima, Mon Amour, a sort of anti romance. Yet Marienbad is the film he’s most likely to be remembered for, a film of such joyous enpuzzlement as to resemble a cryptic puzzle for minimalists. Taking place in a huge French château, a man meets a woman who may, or may not, have had an affair with him the previous year at Marienbad, or was it Frederiksbad? They spend their time there dreaming of their possible past and future and of their desires.
At least three films come to mind when I think of L’Année. The first, bizarrely enough, is Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express, in which the hero returns home to find his flat flooded out and proceeds to discuss how one can prevent a house from crying. I don’t know what the equivalent of anthropomorphism is for buildings, but the house here almost seems like another character in the piece and does indeed seem to want to cry. Then one recalls Godard’s Le Mèpris, with its comparisons between the protagonists, the crew and the Greek heroes they were depicting, and here between the central couple and the classical statues they were trying to empathise with. Finally, one recalls La Règle du Jeu, which was also set at a country château and in the company of the upper echelon of society. (Though the games there were less intellectual and bound more to an outmoded vision of honour.) Yet such recollections are altogether appropriate for a film which is largely about mistily recollected meetings and memories.
Recollections notwithstanding, the most dreamy film of all time is also a contender for most pretentious. Everything, including the characters, is laid out in a mise-en-scene that resembles a geometrical puzzle, with endless tracking shots “through the corridors, salons, galleries…the structure of this mournful mansion from another age, where corridors without end succeed corridors…” From the opening seemingly endless pan through the corridors, one has the feeling of entering a mausoleum. The continually interrupted, occasionally inaudible, often repetitive narration seeming at first to be provided by a spirit rather then a flesh and blood character, a feeling intensified by Sacha Vierny’s superbly sharp photography. When we finally see two servants and realise that there may be life here after all, they still preserve the perfect symmetry of the walls and picture. The people seem merely intruders in a great drama, that of the mansion itself, whose cold stones have heard men and women down the ages and will hear more still, a feeling intensified by the various narrative flash-forwards. (Surely this film was an influence of Alexander Sokurov’s masterful Russian Ark, which took the same feeling to another level.) There is a precision in the script that is matched by the actors’ delivery and the direction, with Resnais placing his cast so precisely within the frame that they begin to resemble the lifeless puttica in the halls and statues in the garden. He’s also helped by Seyrig’s truly iconographic appearance (it can hardly be called a performance) and, though it can be a hard film to watch, it’s never less than a rewarding one and definitely a film that will continue to baffle for as long as its central château stands. C’est magnifique!
That sounds fascinating. Being a novitiate cinephile, I of course have never seen this one, but maybe someday I’ll have a chance. I like the comparisons to the other films, and immediately thought of The Rules of the Game when I started reading your review. The only Resnais I’ve seen is Nuit et Brouillard, which is some mighty powerful stuff. I’m curious now to see that same talent applied to such an enigmatic feature film. Interesting how in the Holocaust doc he was so spare and direct, and here it sounds like he enjoyed being abstruse.
Allan, you got it exactly right when you called this both “the most dreamy film of all time” and “a contender for the most pretentious.” For some that’s an irresistible combination, and I have to confess I’m one of them. This is definitely a love-it-0r-hate-it film and as such probably only for the most adventurous and dedicated cinephiles. This movie could almost turn the idea that “the past is a different country” into “the past is a different planet,” so removed from reality does it seem. Seeing it once–or maybe twice many years apart–should suffice for most. As they say, once seen, never forgotten.
Jenny: I assure you MARIENBAD will be with you soon enough. The Criterion release is scheduled for next month, and I will be getting it of course. Your speculation as to what to expect here is sound, I’ll say that. I’ve always regarded this as a great film, in spite of teh subsequent acknowledgement by R.D. of Allan’s deliberately cryptic summary judgement.
R.D. I say ‘absolutely’ to you in regards to taht ‘love it or hate it’ edict. I’ve come across those on each end of the spectrum here.
Thanks very much to both of you for your typically fecund comments.
I loved this when I saw it years ago, and for a while I considered Resnais one of my favorite filmmakers, on the basis of this & Hiroshima. But I saw Hiroshima again a year ago, and it suddenly struck me as, I don’t know, silly in its labored solemnity (though I need another viewing to firm up my opinions on it). I wonder how Marienbad will hold up when I rent the Criterion in a month or two. Unlike Hiroshima, I don’t think Marienbad takes itself especially seriously (its somber tone is delivered with a bit of a wink), so I may not have second thoughts this time. I hope not, I remember being knocked out – viscerally, rather than intellectually – by the film.
I will be buying that Criterion Movie Man, as I buy every other one, but I did own the Region 1 Fox Lorber, which of course will be ecliped by this new release. Alas, that ‘solemnity’ in HIROSHIMA is by and large what bothered me about it on repeat viewings; technically its a landmark achievement, but its somewhat ponderous.
MARIENBAD does NOT take itself nearly as seriously as HIROSHIMA, and that in large measure why it works.
Resnais’s masterpiece however, is neither film: It’s NUIT ET BRULLIARD.
MovieMan and Sam, interesting you should bring up “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” I didn’t get around to watching it until after the best of the 50s thread ended. (It wouldn’t have made the list anyway, so my tardiness didn’t matter in the end.) But I did watch it recently (my first time) and my next post at the The Movie Projector will be on it. It is a very solemn movie, and that relentless solemnity can get a bit wearing after a while. But the solemnity of its subject explains and perhaps justifies many of Resnais’s stylistic choices, and that style was quite novel for its time. In any case, I found it made a good subject for writing about.
MovieMan, Allan, Jenny, Bobby J. and others:
Our good friend R.D. has really outdone himself today with this masterful examination of HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR at The Movie Projector.
Check it out:
http://movieprojector.blogspot.com/2009/04/necessity-of-remembering.html
Sam, interesting we see to agree on Hiroshima. I hope I turn around on it again, accepting it flaws and all because, well, I like liking it. I often feel that way about movies…certain ones I want to be my favorites beforehand, though I’m pretty good about letting the chips fall where they may. One example, though it’s an example of slight distinction (“distinction” hear meaning differentiation rather than value): Pinocchio. I watched it again today, as part of the massive re-viewing of classics I’m doing in preparation for my “The 150” series. Even as I slid the VHS tape into the VCR, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want too many early Disneys cluttering up my list and that Fantasia and Bambi would retain their primacy, along with possibly the slight but infinitely charming Dumbo. But boy, was I wrong! Pinocchio is such an undeniable masterpiece that I can’t see much way around including it in my canon. Clusters be damned!
Anyway, back to Hiroshima. On first viewing, I of course noticed the potentially pretentious solemnity but it didn’t bother me. I was in a sense able to both overlook it and write it off while focusing on the immense formal beauty (including not just the photography, but also – in fact especially – the musical, fluid editing), the conceptual brilliance, and the thematic richness of the subject. Yet on repeat viewing it became harder to ignore what suddenly seemed excessive self-seriousness, and the Japanese actor looked increasingly like a wax model standing in his spot to symbolize the sins of the West and the exoticism of the East.
Which is probably intentional, though that doesn’t necessarily redeem the fact. Nonetheless, as I said, I’d like to return to Hiroshima and re-discover its values as more important than its flaws. At any rate, as you suggest, I suspect I will return to Marienbad and find its sly, mystifying humor even more charming than I did the first time.
Hey Movie man, I look to that new Post at The Dancing Image with great relish, and I will be responding later tonite or in the morning. And I’ll continue the discourse with HIROSHIMA too. Thank you very much, MM.
As it is I am leaving school now to pick up Broadway Bob for a 6:00 offering at the Tribecca Film Festival. Finding parking will be a nightmare, not to mention rush hour traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s the new film by L. Puenzo, the director of XXY.
Well, Sam, I am about to cap a visit home by raking my parents’ lawn. So there.
(Damn you…)
Hey Movie Man, the lawn cutting is just about ready to start!!! Ha!
As far as Wonders in the Dark, I leave the stewardship to my dear friend Allan……..a.k.a. The Marquis de Sade of Kendal.