Last Year at Marienbad (Blu-ray)

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I´m normally resistant to interpreting polysemous films like "Marienbad," but the gaming motif is such a tease that it´s difficult to resist. Rather than call it an interpretation, I´d rather discuss my favorite perspective on the film, a game I like to play to enhance my enjoyment of it. Like many people, I think "Marienbad" works as a ghost story of sorts though one with a science-fiction twist. The stillness of so many actors evokes the feel of a mausoleum or a wax museum and there are many hints dropped in the voice-over that they, like the hotel, are products of a "bygone era." X, M and A are trapped in a time loop, reliving a past traumatic experience over and over again, but each time once more removed from the actual experience. In this sense they are more holograms than ghosts. If you slice away part of a hologram, the entire image is still present but it loses some resolution, becoming more diffuse with each cut. With each repetition, what is left of X, M and A likewise becomes more diffuse and so do their memories of what happened back in the ever-receding real world.

I want to emphasize that I don´t intend this as an effort to uncover the movie´s real meaning because that would miss the point entirely. This is a movie about movie-making first and foremost. In many shots, the characters are frozen and only lurch into movement after the camera has settled on them. Like all movie characters, they literally do not exist when the camera is not filming them. Go ahead, look, you won´t see them if they´re not in the frame.

"Marienbad" is primarily a movie about the objects that are filmed, including the people-objects that serve as our protagonists, or rather about their surfaces because cinema is and can only be about surfaces. That´s not Delphine Seyrig after all (that would be tough since she died in 1990) but only an image of her captured on film and now transferred into a digital format (the hologram metaphor makes more sense now). All films are products a "bygone era" the instant they are recorded.

With its array of startling images from cinematographer Sacha Vierny, its unprecedented exploration of architectural space and its teasingly complex narrative structure, "Last Year at Marienbad" is a film that divided audiences when it was released and continues to do so today. For some, it is the ultimate manifestation of pseudo-intellectual pretension. To others, the ones who know what the hell they´re talking about, it´s one of the greatest films ever made, and an experience unrivaled in cinema.

VIDEO

The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

With black-and-white photography that varies in contrast from scene to scene, with one famous shot intended to look almost completely whited out, it´s hard to evaluate any restored transfer. Indeed, as one of the extras on the DVD recounts, the film was a bitch for theaters to piece together because of what appeared to be some "incorrect" timing that some exhibitors saw fit to "correct" on their own.

Considering that this transfer is approved by director Alain Resnais, it´s safe to assume it´s pretty close to the original intention. Criterion has released both an SD and a Blu-Ray version of "Marienbad" and there is little doubt that the Blu-Ray is a vast improvement. In fact, it´s damn near perfect. What a marvelous tribute to a great movie that has been shabbily treated in Region 1 up until now.


AUDIO

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Mono. In an interesting movie, one which I can´t recall on a previous Criterion release, Resnais has insisted that the original audio be made available to home audiences in addition to the digitally restored soundtrack by Criterion. I listened to it with the original (I´m old school) and switched back and forth to the restored from time to time. No doubt the restoration sounds richer and cleaner, but Resnais´ insistence once again raises the question of whether something like this should sound so rich and clean. In any case, you can´t go wrong with either option.

EXTRAS

To date, "Marienbad" has only been available in Region 1 on a miserable disc released by Fox Lorber many years ago. For those of us who have had to subsist on this thin gruel for the past decade, the Criterion restoration comes not just as a welcome relief but as a genuine miracle. It´s not just the vastly improved image quality but also the considerable amount of extras offered for a film that positively requires them.

Home audiences have the option of listening to the film with the restored audio track or the original theatrical audio. Two trailers are also included, the original and the Rialto re-release.

This Blu-Ray is packed with goodies, but none are more valuable than the two short documentaries by Resnais. Both documentaries prove that an ostensibly dry project can produce a rich and rewarding film. "Tout la mémoire du monde" (1956, 21 min.) is a beautiful depiction of the French National Library in Paris that might seem quaint in the modern era of digital archives. It provides yet another example of Resnais´ obsession with memory as you might have guess from the title.

Even more unlikely is "Le chant du styrene" (1958, 13 min.), shot in a polystyrene (plastics) factory. Consisting of bold primary colors and abstracted imagery, it´s an update of the poetic British documentaries of the 30s for the pop art age and is yet another indisputable masterpiece.

"Unraveling the Enigma: The Making of ´Marienbad´" (33 min) is a new documentary shot for Criterion that fortunately does not deliver on the threat of the title by trying to explain away the mysteries of "Marienbad." Several of Resnais´ collaborators discuss the film´s production, including assistant directors Volker Schlöndorff and Jean Léon, script girl Sylvette Baudrot (continuity must have been a really fun job on this shoot), and production designer Jacques Saulnier.

Ginette Vincendeau provides an illuminating analysis of the film (22 min) and also doesn´t try to undermine by over-interpreting. She spends a good deal of time discussing the collaboration between Resnais and Robbe-Grillet.

The final feature is an audio interview with Resnais (33 min) played over images from the film. The interview was conducted in 2008 for Criterion by film scholar François Thomas.

The substantial insert booklet features an essay by Mark Polizzotti, Robbe-Grillet´s introduction to his published screenplay of "Marienbad," and an "Afterword" by François Thomas which discusses some of the differences between Resnais and Robbe-Grillet regarding the film. This is the same booklet as included in the SD release.

FILM VALUE

"Last Year at Marienbad" is one of the primary movies that made me want to go to film school and become a film critic. It changed my perception of what movies could actually do and I didn´t even see it until 1999. nearly 40 years after its release. It´s just as bracing and essential today as ever. I am forever loyal to "2001: A Space Odyssey" but I won´t argue with anyone who calls "Last Year at Marienbad" the greatest film ever made.

A few years ago I put a real Region 1 release of "Last Year at Marienbad" on my list of wishes for the New Year. It finally happened. Criterion has done a bang up job both on this SD release and the Blu-Ray version. The Blu-Ray, however, represents a substantial upgrade over the SD. I don´t own a lot of them but this is easily the best Blu-Ray I have ever seen.