Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  a comedy? a horror film? a total mind fuck that was a big influence on kubrick and lynch, it's like the perfect melding of antonioni and bunuel. an amazing looking nightmare

• William S

  
  Defiantly indefinable, frustrating and utterly mesmerising (literally). On a very superficial level, North by Northwest as a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. You may very easily dismiss it as indulgent pretense but us cinephiles are too busy having our retinas burned by… More
  Defiantly indefinable, frustrating and utterly mesmerising (literally). On a very superficial level, North by Northwest as a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. You may very easily dismiss it as indulgent pretense but us cinephiles are too busy having our retinas burned by staring into the heart of cinema's most incandescent jewel...

• Dan S

  
  An intriguing, stylistic, but plodding picture concerning anonymous figures, one of which being an aggressive male trying convince a beautiful female that the two of them had an affair a year ago that day. The film has tons of style and gets tricky with the camera, especially near the… More
  An intriguing, stylistic, but plodding picture concerning anonymous figures, one of which being an aggressive male trying convince a beautiful female that the two of them had an affair a year ago that day. The film has tons of style and gets tricky with the camera, especially near the conclusion, but this is literally one of the longest movies I felt I have seen - and it is only 93 minutes long! Sure, the acting is good, and this is pretty good melodrama, but it is a film that refuses to tie up any loose ends, and as a result, feels disappointing. Ambiguous endings are great when done correctly, sadly this film misses out.

• AJ V

  
  I saw this movie for a class, but I didn't watch the entire film because it's so slow and boring, but it is actually pretty atmospheric most of the time. Overall, it's okay, not great, but not bad either.

• Robert C

  
  If you go into this film thinking of it more as a poem about someone's memory of an "affair" (love / obsession / lust) that has been pulled from their mind in the (slightly disconbobulated) manner that one tends to rememebr things of that nature, I think you're in… More
  If you go into this film thinking of it more as a poem about someone's memory of an "affair" (love / obsession / lust) that has been pulled from their mind in the (slightly disconbobulated) manner that one tends to rememebr things of that nature, I think you're in for a treat. Included in this poetic revisting of an "affair" that may or may not have actually happened (at least not in a physical sense) is the realization that our memories of such things are so often tainted by our tendency to make them so much more (beautiful/painful) then they may have actually been. The overly romantic heart is a very powerful thing and can often wrestle our more practical minds into submission when love/lust/passion is a key element. I think the reason why so many people have issues with this film is probably because of the fact that it is so beautifully shot and so much thought is given to all of the lush visuals that our minds immediately go into a traditional "epic romance" mode, when in fact "abstract poetry" mode is what is required as there is NOTHING traditional about this film. I also really enjoyed the sense of Deja vu that is given from the revisiting of the memories of "last year" and how they are ever so slightly changed each time we witness the memory. But I can see how this could really put some people off. So if you are open to a beautiful but quirky and abstract telling of a romance that may or may not have happend....you are in for a treat.

• Emil K

  
  As a parody this film could work properly, but director Alain Resnais plays his film by far too seriously and the end result is a pseudo-intellectual mess. Resnais intentions are clear here. He sets out a complex puzzle inside a huge mansion where time seems to freeze and everyone in… More
  As a parody this film could work properly, but director Alain Resnais plays his film by far too seriously and the end result is a pseudo-intellectual mess. Resnais intentions are clear here. He sets out a complex puzzle inside a huge mansion where time seems to freeze and everyone in it are like rats in huge maze without the exit. The Whole film is clearly story about the limbo build of memories and a different kind of a suspense story where leading lady has to remember certain things to find her way out of maze. It is all about memory. But even if the setting is one of the kind and quite honestly at least interesting, one cannot feel a bit amused of all seriouness of it all. It all just plays out so seriously that it becomes parody of a "art" film. On the plus side there is Sacha Vierny's gorgeous photography and Francis Seyrig's unusual and hellish organ-soundtrack.

• Ken S

  
  Beautifully shot and mind numbingly pretentious, this piece of film art is worth seeing for it's stylistic influences alone. An obvious influence on Kubrick's the Shining. The multiple time lines and non linear story telling style may infuriate some viewers.

• Michael G

  
  An amazing looking film that makes you feel like you're drunk.

• Chris B

  
  Dreamlike in every sense of the word the film is more style and wonderful cinematography than cohesive plot. This isn't to say that there isnt a plot or its a shallow one, but a film that can't be easily deconstructed. The techniques used in filming are inspiring and… More
  Dreamlike in every sense of the word the film is more style and wonderful cinematography than cohesive plot. This isn't to say that there isnt a plot or its a shallow one, but a film that can't be easily deconstructed. The techniques used in filming are inspiring and continue to be an example today. This really is a visual and atmoshpheric film that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Highly Recommended!

• Ivan D

  
  "Last Year at Marienbad", certainly one of the most enigmatic motion pictures in all of cinema history, is an exhilarating piece of art whose main intent is not to tell a coherent story but to evoke a multitude of moods, feelings and states of mind. Its director, Alain… More
  "Last Year at Marienbad", certainly one of the most enigmatic motion pictures in all of cinema history, is an exhilarating piece of art whose main intent is not to tell a coherent story but to evoke a multitude of moods, feelings and states of mind. Its director, Alain Resnais, is not much concerned with narratives of any kind but on the utmost potential of film as an art form when there's little to none. His earlier film, "Hiroshima Mon Amour", has a slight semblance of a story but instead capitalizes on the emotional landscapes of the characters. This one on the other hand, a pure masterpiece of modern cinema, is a journey of shifting moods and of the ever-changing nature of memory wrapped in the poetic repetitiveness of a love story that may or may not have been. Set within the confines of a lavish chateau populated by high society people luxuriating in certain stagnant joys (card games and endless drinks), "Last Year at Marienbad" is about two people, a man ('X') and a woman ('A'), and their struggle to remember a romantic affair that they, according to the man, might have had 'last year at Marienbad'. Oh, and there's also another character ('M'), the man that may or may not be the woman's husband/lover. Mysteriously code-named like parts of a mathematical equation, these three characters are involved in an emotionally treacherous attempt to make sense of events that are eye-deep in abstraction. Can they even arrive at something akin to certainty? Through the use of exquisite editing, "Last Year at Marienbad" was able to channel a hauntingly cerebral texture, which makes the film even more mysterious than it already is. And by merging flashbacks (or are they?) with the inferred reality of the film (or is it?), the film was able to take on a very dream-like feel which ultimately speaks of the utter unreliability of memory and the consequences of not having remembered much. As with all avant-garde films, "Last Year at Marienbad" is a highly divisive picture that may either be branded as a stunning masterpiece or merely as a highly-ornamented piece of pretentious gunk. For one, it is clearly understandable for some viewers to categorize the film in the latter, with the film's lack of narrative being one of the primary culprits why it can easily be labeled as nothing but a pseudo-profound waste of time. But still, no one can deny the film's powerful simulation of what goes on inside a person's mind when love (especially a forbidden one) is painfully involved. But then again, "Last Year at Marienbad" may really not be about love just like how "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is not simply about a happenstance romance. At least for me, the film's lasting effect is not really about how memories twist reality but about how love twists life itself. And in this elliptical masterpiece that is "Last Year at Marienbad", the ultimate victim is the mind. Alain Resnais, one of the seminal movers of the French New Wave (although indirectly at that), has created his ultimate masterpiece in the form of this film, a hauntingly nightmarish depiction of the fragility of memory, of a love affair that really wasn't, and of a reality that betrays. "Last Year at Marienbad" is, at least for me, a profoundly anomalous take on how the phrase 'last year' could have easily been 'last month', 'last week' or even 'last hour or so'; it plays a bitter puzzle game on its three main characters and, ultimately, on us, the viewers. How did we come to participate on it? I have the slightest bit of clue. Perhaps the game just ceased to be.

• Quinto W

  
  There's very little in terms of plot development, but that doesn't make this film any less haunting. What's so engaging about it (besides a stunning cinematography and a fantastic score) is the way the story and the visuals play with our mind - the aacurate way it… More
  There's very little in terms of plot development, but that doesn't make this film any less haunting. What's so engaging about it (besides a stunning cinematography and a fantastic score) is the way the story and the visuals play with our mind - the aacurate way it depicts how dreamlike and vague memory can be.

• MJS M

  
  This is a movie with a very creative and haunting visual style and it has a narrative filled with interesting ideas. That should be a perfect mix, but unfortunately I it felt to me like the creative visuals didn?t really compliment the creative story all that well and vice versa. Of… More
  This is a movie with a very creative and haunting visual style and it has a narrative filled with interesting ideas. That should be a perfect mix, but unfortunately I it felt to me like the creative visuals didn?t really compliment the creative story all that well and vice versa. Of the two elements I probably liked the visuals better, the way Resnais films the hotel this takes place in a beautiful and haunting, I have a hunch that this was an inspiration for the way Kubrick filmed The Shining. However, I?m not sure that this slow, sterile, and artful style was really a good choice to convey the talky, passionate, and emotional story at the center of it all. The whole thing was generally very slow, I got an Antonioni vibe from the whole thing and that is not a compliment.

• Emily B

  
  Simply a masterpiece. A simple plot of a man trying to convince a woman that they had an affair the previous year, yet still a complex puzzle which will take more than one viewing to fully undertand. The black and white cinematography is beautiful. The tracking shots through the… More
  Simply a masterpiece. A simple plot of a man trying to convince a woman that they had an affair the previous year, yet still a complex puzzle which will take more than one viewing to fully undertand. The black and white cinematography is beautiful. The tracking shots through the corridors of the baroque hotel are also sublime. A truly unique experience.

• Linda K

  
  You would most likely hate this film or just not understand a thing of this film. But you could admire the cinematography which is fabulous. Before seeing the film, you should be aware that it is crazier than David Lynch's films. It is nothing that anyone could expect.

Read all 14 featured audience ratings