Last Year at Marienbad

Rating:
Summary: Greatest achievement of Intellect
Review: Very conforting and reasuring film. What we see is pure mind.

Rating:
Summary: THE KEY TO MARIENBAD
Review: This movie is not as obscure and incomprehensible as some reviewers here suggest, and many clues are provided to unlock its mysteries. The story is a modern retelling of a classical Greek legend. At a strange baroque resort, where people often move like mannikins or not at all, where countless repetition is the order of the day, and where people's memories have faded, a young man attempts to convince a woman that they had an affair a year before and to come away with him. If you guess that you're in the Underworld, you're on the right track. (There's even a later scene where you witness the violent deed that brought the woman to this place.) But the most important clue among many is a pair of statues in a garden. It consists of two figures in classical dress. A man, without looking back, is leading a woman, who walks behind him. Leading her out of where? Someone states that this marble couple represents King Charles III and his wife in classical dress. But you mustn't believe everything you hear. The character who identifies the statues is the Lord of this Underworld and he wants the woman to remain -- with him. His words are not to be believed or trusted. Figure out the actual identities of this marble couple, and everything in "Last Year at Marienbad" that seems incompehensible now, will suddenly make sense; you'll see the picture with new eyes. If you need futher hints, the same legend was used by director Marcel Camus in a famous 1958 Brazilian film set during the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Jean Cocteau recreated the same myth in Paris in 1949. Tennessee Williams tackled the story as well, and two movies were later filmed, based on Williams' version, the first of which starred Marlon Brando. The difference between "Marienbad" and the four other versions mentioned is that "Marienbad" ends on a positive note before the entire legend is played out.

Rating:
Summary: Strange...Beautiful
Review: Foreign movies...not for everybody...and I'am not usually a fan myself---but this is a real gem. It makes sense to buy this because it's a film you can really watch several times--its really quite like a painting moving across your screen--it pulls you into another world. The dialogue and plot really don't matter...your own psyche will take over.

Rating:
Summary: 94 Minutes of Torment
Review: I am an avid fan of foreign, avant-garde, bizarre, challenging and/or enigmatic films, but this one is just plain agonizing to watch. The photography and the characters are beautiful, but I had to view this film in two sessions, both of them tormentingly slow. At first I thought it was some kind of variation on Sartre's "No Exit," but if it was, I was the one in the waiting room in Hell! This movie is pointless, vapid and pathetically pretentious. I hope God adds ninety-four minutes onto my life as a reward for sitting through Last Year at Marienbad!

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable indeed.
Review: By my mother's perhaps curious choice, I saw this film long before I was old enough to read the subtitles; I must have been 4 or 5. I was mesmerized by it, and it has stayed with me, as image and atmosphere, for 40 years since.

Rating:
Summary: stunning
Review: This is an amazing film that I've seen countless times.The combination of the constantly gliding camera and the languid voice over make for a truly mesmeric experience.The way director Resnais plays with time is astonishing.An unforgettable movie that really does stand up to repeat viewings.
A masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Weird !
Review: i don't know what prompted me to rent this movie, i knew nothing about it. now i know, but i don't understand.

this is a phantastic movie. even though it is in b/w, it has an extremely trippy feel to it. but i loved it mainly for its mysteriousness. how open it is for interpretation.

do not go anywhere near this film, if you like action movies, or even require clearcut storytelling.

about the DVD: the frame seemed oddly shaky, and there are no extras to speak of.

Rating:
Summary: Last Year at Marienbad
Review: Is this their last year at Marienbad? Or was this their last year at Marienbad? The title itself is ambigious as is the film. After viewing I dug up a copy of the original screenplay by Grillet which had a nice introduction to the film. Basically they both had the desire to create a film with a new 'form' that being to avoid all conventions of regular cinema - instead of phone rings, man picks up phone, man says hello - there would be no such logical, linear structure to Marienbad. Grillet wrote not only the basic 'story' but also included many of the camera set-ups as well in his own primitive way and he states that almost all of them were used when possible, Resnais never changed them on a whim but only when they were not possible due to architectural boundries or economical boundries, etc. The film succesfully captures this idea of a fragmented dream or a repeating memory but with no clues as to whether we are seeing the past, the present, or the future. Beautifully filmed and edited, the visual style of the film holds up 40 years later and in fact is far superior to 99% of the films you will see today.

The film is difficult but definately a brilliant work. It is unfortunate that the DVD quality is indeed poor - non-anamorphic and also quite pixelated in some places although thankfully it's worse at the front end so it is less noticable as you go on.
I'm sure it looks much better than a VHS copy but it's certain they could make a better transfer of this movie for DVD.

Rating:
Summary: FOREVER AHEAD OF IT'S TIME
Review: There's not much that can be added to the praise this film has garnered. Peter Greenaway told me once "this film was the perfect collaboration between screenwriter and director". Greenaway, of course, used it's Cinematographer Sasha Verney for almost every film he made, until Sasha's death last year. Tis pity Fox Lorber didn't make this DVD 16:9 NOR did they use all of Robbe-Grillet's translated text, which ruins many points of them film. But my review isn't for a substandard pressing, it's for a brilliant film that was made to be appreciated not comprehended.

Now if only someone would release the films Alain Robbe-Grillet directed...

Rating:
Summary: Or was it Frederiksbad?
Review: Based on a story (if you want to call it that) by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Resnais' *Last Year at Marienbad* remains the ultimate expression of the French New Wave. Which means, for me at least, it's one of the all-time greats. For others, such a description is either meaningless or anathema...The repetitive, hypnotic narration, together with the trippy organ score, accompany the camera as it glides Steadicam-like through an icily baroque hotel. Things settle down soon enough and we get involved in the story of a man (the narrator) who's convinced he had an affair with a beautiful young guest at the hotel (a brunette Delphine Seyrig) the year before. Here's a tip for those yet to be initiated into the films of Resnais: the director's pet theme is the malleability of memory. Therefore, what happened "last year at Marienbad" (neither of the principals are sure if it was Marienbad, Frederiksbad, or some other spa) is not so important, at least in terms of what the movie's trying to get at, as what WILL happen THIS year at Marienbad or wherever. The movie's been termed as the ultimate puzzle-picture, but the word "puzzle" indicates that there's a solution. Those trying to solve the puzzle of Albertazzi's and Seyrig's combined memories may as well have a 20-sided Rubik's Cube to work with. With *Marienbad*, Resnais audaciously challenged conventional techniques of storytelling and came up with something shockingly new. Sadly, this brilliant, legendary director has been for the most part forgotten, but this particular work of his is still remembered even by only half-serious movie buffs. (A friend of mine once asked of me: "Isn't that the flick where everyone looks like they're in a cologne commercial?" At the very least, *Marienbad* represents the American conception of the stereotypical "foreign" film!) Because of his genuinely groundbreaking films of the late 50's on through the 60's, Alain Resnais, it seems to me, must be accounted as one of the most innovative creative minds in the history of Art. Buy *Last Year at Marienbad* and see what I'm talking about. [The DVD is by Fox-Lorber -- 'nuff said. Meaning, it's TERRIBLE. The transfer is pixelly, the compositions look watery. But enough of the photographic magnificence remains to justify purchase. No features, natch... What the dealio?]