'Last Year in Marienbad' is certainly puzzling. The people in the garden cast long shadows, but the trees do not. The gothic organ music of Francis Seyrig is unsettling. The chronology and locations are scrambled. We notice that, on the various occasions we have seen the woman, she has been wearing different dresses. Perhaps they first made their acquaintance in Karlstadt or Baden-Salsa. Or Marienbad? He begins to lose confidence in some of the details of his story. She persists in denying that they have ever met, and asks to be left alone. Our man encounters the woman repeatedly at different spots around the hotel. ‘I suggest a different game, a game I always win.’ The woman has a partner (Sacha Pitoëff), a mournful fellow, who, whilst repeatedly winning the games, keeps a wary eye on her movements. The other guests play at cards, dominoes and matchsticks. The couple wander about the hotel and the opulent geometric gardens - along gravel paths, past pools, waterfalls and hedges.Īnd then he is alone again, walking through the labyrinth of halls, foyers and corridors, in silence. The same way of holding out your arm to ward off something in the way, of raising your hand to your shoulder. ‘You’ve still the same faraway eyes, the same smile, the same sudden laugh. They had a romance and agreed to meet one year later. He remembers the precise location, her posture, their conversation. He recalls their first encounter in the gardens at Frederiksbad. Have I changed so much? Or are you pretending not to know me?’ She is amused, charmed perhaps, but cannot recollect ever having met him. He shows her round the hotel, explaining the architecture. Our man addresses a beautiful Chanel-clad woman whom he finds standing in a doorway (Delphine Seyrig). Like these days that we live through, side by side, and almost hand in hand - our mouths forever apart.’ ‘You confine me in a whispering silence worse than death. Sometimes they stare, impassively, like statues frozen in time and space. When it’s over the guests talk in hushed tones. There’s a performance of an Ibsen play in the hotel theatre and the formally dressed audience sits in rapt concentration. And it sets to one side conventional approaches to narrative structure.Īn unnamed man (Giorgio Albertazzi) paces the long corridors of a baroque chateau hotel - past a few silent servants, past empty salons with stucco ceilings and gilt ornamentation past hallways with sculptured doorframes, grandiose chandeliers and crystal mirrors past potted palms and walls hung with sombre oil paintings and horticultural prints. It’s an elegant exploration of memory and dreams, of the process of thought. 'Last Year in Marienbad' is a 1961 French film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Someone who may never come, to separate us again, to take you away from me.’ ‘You still wait for someone who will never come.
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