Last Year at Marienbad (DVD)

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As much as any film I can think of, "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961) provides the greatest challenge for non-Francophones who need to rely on the subtitles. Viewers glancing down at the words at the bottom of the screen risk getting lost in a movie that demands constant attention because of the overwhelming amount of visual information packed into each frame. Every gesture, every slight variance in posture, and the intricate décor of each setting is crucial to an appreciation, though not necessarily an understanding, of this extraordinary film.

Set in a swanky resort hotel at an indeterminate European location, "Marienbad" does not tell a traditional narrative or rely on psychologically motivated characters. The characters don´t even have names but are rather assigned letters in the screenplay. The basic structure, a love triangle of sorts, is elegant in its simplicity. The suave, handsome X (Giorgio Albertazzi) attempts to convince the beautiful and impeccably dressed A (Delphine Seyrig) that they had met the previous year. Perhaps in Frederiksbad or perhaps at Marienbad. She does not believe him, but he badgers her with memories so detailed they include whether she turned to her left or right or how she placed her arm on a balcony. He acts more like an academic than a would-be lover, trying to impress her with the sheer amount of research he has done on the topic. Throughout, the etiolated figure of M (Sacha Pitoëff), who may be her husband, constantly lurks along the fringes of the action.

"Marienbad" is the product of one of the most remarkable director/writer collaborations in cinema history. Alain Resnais had previously worked with the great writers Jean Cayrol ("Night and Fog," 1955) and Marguerite Duras ("Hiroshima, Mon Amour," 1959) and now paired off with novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet. Robbe-Grillet was a pioneer of the nouveau roman, a French literary movement that broke with traditional conventions of story telling, relying on "objective" descriptions of environment and actions rather than delving into the character´s psychological motivations (Cayrol and Duras were also part of the nouveau roman movement).

At the behest of a producer friend, the two men met and struck up an instant friendship, finding that they shared an artistic vision. An eager Robbe-Grillet volunteered to write four proposals for Resnais from which he would choose one to film. Resnais loved all four but picked "Last Year" ("at Marienbad" was added later). Robbe-Grillet then produced an extraordinarily detailed shooting script that specified movements and audio cues and handed it off to Resnais who filmed it in a mostly faithful manner. Robbe-Grillet would later play up some of the ways he was displeased with Resnais´ adaptation, but it´s hard to tell how much of this was just for the sake of publicity.

"Marienbad" begins with a disembodied voice that describes in detail "this baroque, gloomy hotel where one endless corridor follows another. " This opening narration is repeated three times as the camera tracks through this "edifice of a bygone era." The repetition of dialogue establishes the film´s recursive structure but also provides relief for the viewer who can look away from the words and soak up the images floating by: the ornately designed ceilings, the leviathan chandeliers, and those "endless corridors" that unfold to a distant vanishing point.

Finally the camera settles on an audience staring raptly at what we soon learn is a stage. They are motionless save for the occasional eye blink. So is the actress on stage and when we first hear her voice, it is also free-floating, unconnected to her image. It isn´t even necessarily her though the editing would strongly suggest so. The film toys with the relationship of sound and image throughout.

Though we haven´t met our (sort of) characters yet (M is featured in an early close-up, but we don´t yet know his significance), the film has been set up with remarkable efficiency. "Marienbad" is a movie of repetitions, some exact, some with slight variations, and it´s the variations that tell the story though they are so subtle and varied it´s impossible to piece them together in a definitive manner.

As words and movements are repeated, the film shifts both in time and setting. A character begins to turn in one room and finishes the maneuver in another. In one famous shot the two walk along a corridor. The sequence actually began on one film location and ended at another. The shifts aren´t clearly delineated, but the primary marker is A´s changes of wardrobe, most notably from a stylish black dress to a white feathered peignoir. "Marienbad" is rightfully celebrated by many for the prominence of its fashion designs by Chanel as for its formalist innovation. Just as enduring is the geometrically-designed topiary with its otherworldly triangular bushes and painted-on shadows, one of many elements that will remind viewers of Kubrick´s "The Shining" (1980).

As X endlessly rehashes their alleged prior meeting, A´s polite dismissal turns more desperate as it seems that she is actively suppressing a memory. The film suggests that their prior meeting may have involved a rape though the staging frustrates any definitive reading (Resnais denies the rape element, but it seems too obvious to ignore). X´s resolve also crumbles. The more detailed his memories, the more he begins to doubt them which, if you think about it, is precisely the way memory works. Perhaps she actually turned left, or maybe she was wearing a different outfit. Was she sitting on the bed or lying on it? And was it Frederiksbad or Marienbad? And if I can´t remember that, can I trust my memory at all? Memory was also the dominant theme of "Night and Fog" and "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" as well as subsequent Resnais films such as "Muriel" (1963) and "Je t´aime, je t´aime" (1968).

Delphine Seyrig was in three of the greatest films ever made: "Marienbad" and "Muriel" as well as Chantal Akerman´s "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975, scheduled to be released by Criterion in August) and she is one of my favorite actresses (see also her against-type turn as a Communist super hero in "Mr. Freedom.") In "Marienbad," her performance doesn´t consist of what most people consider traditional acting but rather a series of carefully calibrated poses and gestures. . Seyrig repeats poses across time frames and locations, particularly one sinuous and vulnerable one which suggests a silent film heroine pleading for mercy. Statues figure prominently in the set design and the narrative (such as it is) and the people can properly be considered statues as well. As A, Seyrig is one of the most memorable shapes ever shown on screen, and not just because Ms. Seyrig was so shapely.

Games also loom large in "Marienbad." M, the maybe husband of A, is seen most often in the parlor playing a game that annoys the bejeezus out of everyone else at the resort. It involves an alignment of sticks or cards into four odd-numbered rows and is a game which M states, "I can lose, but which I always win." He always does, but it may be the only game he wins, as X continually chips away at A´s resolve and maybe (everything here is a maybe) wins her from him. The game, for anyone who is curious, is actually called Nim and, as configured in the film, the second player can always win if he plays perfectly. It´s not a stretch to view X as the second player in the game for A though it may be a stretch to say that he plays perfectly.

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.