Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4788 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-23
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Black & White, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Synopsis
In Alain Resnais's masterwork, L'ANNEE DERNIERE A MARIENBAD, each fantasy laden, heavily dramatised, aesthetically perfected scene is dictated by the memories of a man (Giorgio Albertazzi), who is one of many elegant, aristocratic guests vacationing at the enchanting resort, Marienbad. Because the story consists of foggy memories that may or may not be accurate, the film unrolls like a repetitious dream. In the opening sequences, the man describes the immensity and silence of the lavishly decorated baroque hotel as the camera roams its empty hallways. Soon after, the hotel guests appear, assembled for a theatre production inside the hotel. Like the actors in the play, the characters in the film make it obvious that they are also playing established roles and reciting lines. Sometimes they simply pose as the camera passes over them, while at other times, they stand like statues, trying to remember what happened last year. They amuse themselves with parlour games, ballroom waltzes, target practice in the shooting gallery, and strolls through the garden. Meanwhile, the man establishes the abstract plot about a love affair he began last year with a woman (Delphine Seyrig), reconstructed from his partial memories. She remembers nothing of the affair, not even the man's name. In fact, most of the guests cannot even recall the year in which these things might have happened--was it 1928 or 29

Customer Reviews

A pity that the sub-titles ruin the film.
Wont comment on the film itself, which has inspired learned articles ans theses in its day and up to now.

But this editon of the film is appalling, because of the subtitles, which detract from the action for three reasons:

-They are too big, and at times actually hide the action as when they completely obscure the table on which a game is being played.

-They are sometimes inaccurate or incomplete.

-But last and worse, unlike the subtitles on most civilized DVDs, THEY CANNOT BE TURNED OFF !

Had this been made clear in the description of the DVD I would certainly have refrained from buying this item, and avoided the film-long frustration caused by the ******* subtitles.

The dream lingers on many years later
I was doing an Italian course for foreigners in Florence when this came out, so I saw it in Italian. I can still conjure up in my mind, very clearly, the images of the vast hallways, the actors playing actors playing actors, the formal gardens, the ambiguities and the failed memories of the actress Delphine Seyrig. All in all, a magic film in every sense: they really don't make 'em like this any more. I was so impressed by the matchstick game that when I made my hippie-trip to Nepal, I astounded Nepalis and Tibetans alike by never losing a game! This is one of my all-time favourite films, and if you are willing to let yourself get carried away by its mysteries, you should try to see this film.

DVD issue of New Wave Classic....
'Last Year at Marienbad' followed Alain Resnais' prior works concerned with memory and spatial-time, the documentary 'Night & Fog' and 'Hiroshima Mon Amour.' As with 'Hiroshima...' we have a male and female couple at the centre of things- though Resnais collaborates with a different author to Margaret Duras, the oblique writer Alain Robbe-Grillet.

The "story" is quite confounding - simple yet ambiguous : in a vast baroque hotel a man (X) attempts to entice a woman (A) into an affair away from another man (M)- persuading her that they met the previous year at Marienbad (or was it Frederickbad?). That's the plot or story, but Resnais & Robbe-Grillet, with hypnotic cinematography, playful elements (moving objects around in the scenery, suggesting a break with reality)& complex-editing present the film as one of those cinematic mysteries that some will love, others will loathe.

Anyone who has enjoyed such films as Antonioni's 'L'Aventura' & 'Blow Up', Bergman's 'Persona', Roeg & Cammell's 'Performance' & David Lynch's 'Lost Highway' & 'Mulholland Drive' will find much here they should enjoy - it certainly tips the post-modern likes of 'The Usual Suspects' into a cocked hat! 'Last Year at Marienbad' remains one of the great films of the 1960s and stands as one of the great works of the European New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s, alongside such classics as 'Les Quatres Cents Coups','Bande a Part','Les Amants' & the aforementioned 'L'Aventura.' Anyone interested remotely in cinema and its dreamlike, oblique possibilities should watch this film...