Last Year at Marienbad/L'Année Dernière à Marienbad/Last Year in Marienbad (1961) - Resnais' iconic castle-set love mystery

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An avant-garde/artistic poster for Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad

A man in a castle named Marienbad Hotel attempts to recall what happened between him and a beautiful woman there one year ago. - She remembers nothing.

 

Last Year at Marienbad is written by Alain Robbe-Grillet (La Jalousie (1972, TV movie)) and directed by Alain Resnais (Ouvert pour Cause d'Inventaire (1946)). The title is a literal translation of the original French title.

It is one of the foremost films ever to have given French cinema a reputation for being elitist, incomprehensible and dull, - and not without reason in this case. Last Year at Marienbad is funny in an absurd way.

The widescreen images of the castle (cinematography by Sascha Vierny (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989))) are masterly, and the film works best as a visual and technical exercise of a rare breed.

Francis Seyrig's (Marie Soleil (1964)) organ music score is fatiguing, and the entire narrative side of the 'drama' is, of course, pretentious and deeply, deeply mystical. 

 

Related post:

 

Alain Resnais: Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) - Beauty and passion in the midst of devastation in Resnais' striking images

 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain

[Last Year at Marienbad premiered in July (Franse Film Week, Utrecht, Netherlands) and runs 94 minutes. 10 companies cooperated in the financing and production of the film. Shooting took place from September - November 1960 in France and Germany. Details concerning the film's budget and original release box office performances are regrettably not made public online. The film was chosen as France's nomination for the Oscars Best Foreign Film category but went without a nomination. It was instead nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category, lost to Ennio de Concini, Alfredi Giannetti and Pietro Germi for Divorce Italian Style. It was also nominated for a BAFTA and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to 3 notches over this one. Resnais returned with Muriel (1963). Delphine Seyrig (Freak Orlando (1981)) returned in Muriel; Giorgio Albertazzi (La Rivale (1999, TV movie)) in Morte di un Bandito (1961). Last Year at Marienbad is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Last Year at Marienbad? 

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) - Beauty and passion in the midst of devastation in Resnais' striking images

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A muscular man's back, a woman's red lips and a backdrop of stirring, passionate red indicates strong sexuality on this poster for Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour

A beautiful French actress ventures into a heartfelt affair with a local man in Hiroshima, Japan, where she spends a short visit, and their relationship is reconnected later in the new city built up after the nuclear bomb.

 

Hiroshima Mon Amour is written by Marguerite Duras (Le Camion (1977)) and directed by Alain Resnais (Ouvert pour Cause d'Inventaire (1946)). The original French title translates to 'Hiroshima my love'.

A poetical narration and a visual side that packs several scenes that radiate clean beauty are linked to footage of the horrors of the nuclear bomb and its at times horrific consequences, - as life inevitably goes on, not undisturbed by these horrors, but nevertheless still, as here, in the guise of a beautiful, loving couple.

The plot side of the film becomes distant and unreal, but the strong camera work (by cinematographers Michio Takahashi (Itohan monogatari (1957)) and Sacha Vierny (Stavisky/Stavisky... (1974))) keeps one fixed on this remarkable, unique film.

 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain but likely a big hit

[Hiroshima Mon Amour premiered 8 May (Cannes Film Festival) and runs 90 minutes. Resnais was reportedly commissioned to make a documentary on the nuclear bomb attacks in Japan in the vein of his Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1956). Shooting took place from September - December 1958 in France and Japan. The film was kept out of the main competition in Cannes out of a fear that it would offend the Americans with its representations of the devastation caused by their nuclear attacks. The film's box office performance at the time is regrettably not reported online, but it was likely highly successful, not least due to its erotic allure. It has also been re-released numerous times. It was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, lost to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond for The Weekend. It also won 1/3 BAFTA nominations and a National Board of Review award, among other honors.  Together with The 400 Blows (1959) and Breathless (1960), Hiroshima Mon Amour was among the most important films in the French New Wave. Resnais returned with Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Emmanuelle Riva (For Sasha/Pour Sasha (1991)) returned in Le huitième jour (1960); Eiji Okada (Lady Snowblood/Shurayukihime (1973)) in Subarashiki musumetachi (1959). Hiroshima Mon Amour is certified fresh at 98 % with an 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hiroshima Mon Amour?