L'année dernière à Marienbad

"In a luxurious Grand Hôtel at an unspecified spa, a man asks a woman if she doesn't remember. She had promised, after all. A year ago. In the garden. No, it was in the salon. Or in her room? They met for the first time in Marienbad. Maybe it was in Friedrichsbad after all? She doesn't remember. Or perhaps doesn't want to remember. Nothing is certain in Alain Resnais' controversial magnum opus. Memory, fantasy and reality intermingle in indissoluble ambivalence. The labyrinthine, baroque corridors and gardens of the hotel are both the background and the protagonists of a plot that fascinates in its ambiguity. This fascination is deepened by the beautiful, surreal shots that harken back to the expressionism of the silent film era. This is a film that, instead of telling, seduces...and never lets go."

Michael Schmutzer, filmstelle.ch

"Inspired by the nouveau roman, Alain Resnais artfully weaves layers of time and reality into ambiguous, labyrinthine settings of fascinating visual power. A key work of French cinema based on a script by writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet."

Arthaus.com

"Ritual, surreal, ironically symphonically assembled from playfully handled opposites: erotic fantasy and deadly torpor, while the camera glides unleashed through corridors and disembodied voices float through frozen tableuas of silent bodies. The perfect art film - and its consummate parody."

Film Museum Vienna

Contributors and additional information:

France/Italy 1961
95 min. bw. 35 mm. F/d
Director: Alain Resnais
Screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Cinematography: Sacha Vierny
Editing: Jasmine Chesney, Henri Colpi
Music: Francis Seyrig
With: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.