L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad) (1961)
-
95% of critics liked it
(42 reviews) -
85% of users liked it
(6,608 ratings)
A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone… More A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone converge. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as an unnamed sophisticate attempting to convince a similarly nameless woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they met and were romantically involved a year ago in the same enormous, baroque European hotel. In the end, it hardly matters -- they're not characters so much as pawns anyway. Hypnotically dreamlike, Last Year at Marienbad is a surrealist parody of Hollywood melodrama, a high-fashion romance with a dark, alien underbelly. According to screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, the movie is a pure construction, without a frame of reference outside of its own existence -- the lives of its characters begin when the lights go down, and conclude when they come back up. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- Directed By
- Alain Resnais
- Written By
- Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Genres
- Science Fiction & Fantasy, Special Interest
- In Theaters
- Jun 25, 1961 Wide
- On DVD
- Feb 23, 1999
Critic Reviews
-
Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune
To even talk of a story is nonsensical, since a central aesthetic of the film involves the effects of fantasy, time and subjective memory on human consciousness. Marienbad takes place in a heightened, sci-fi nightmare world where knowing, believing
-
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
Marienbad is elegantly hermetic, a ravishing waxworks that has stillness at its heart.
-
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Remains one of cinema's glorious enigmas, endlessly compelling and intriguing.
-
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
The movie is what it is -- a sustained mood, an empty allegory, a choreographed moment outside of time, and a shocking intimation of perfection.
-
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
The film's dreamlike cadences, frozen tableaux, and distilled surrealist poetry are too eerie, too terrifying even, to be shaken off as camp. For all its notoriety, this masterpiece among masterpieces has never really received its due.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
Currently unavailable on Flixster