27 July 2009
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Okay – so more or else an epic failure on the bear story. I’m still writing it, but the regular posting of it made me stop writing until I stopped posting. This is obviously reflective of a host of neuroses that are more or less less interesting than Mad-Libs. And so, in the words of Chris Ware (white on blue, if you prefer): And so. During my extended hiatus where I truly failed to live up to my goal of pushing to the end of the bear, I watched a really good movie that made me want to spill a little more blood on this whole concept of having a movie blog.
Last Year at Marienbad is Alain Resnais’ follow-up to Hiroshima, mon Amour, and its beguiling quality at first turned me off, seeing it as nothing but the predecessor to the aimless, unfocused meandering of David Lynch’s insufferable Inland Empire, which too, repeats phrases and scenes relentlessly and has shifting points of view. But the great part of Resnais’ work here (Alain Robbe-Grillet, the writer, likely bristles at the notion of this being Resnais’ work, given the outlandishly detailed script he provided, noting music type, camera movement and cinematography leading Resnais to call himself a “robot” early on, according to Criterion’s accompanying essays) is the relaxed and studied ways he’s able to merge elements of a play (long, repetive and retrospective monologues and Eugene O’Neill’s still players, for example) seamlessly into the concept of a film, without losing their effectiveness or losing the sense of closeness (which is something that’s really alarming with most filmed plays). Here is a piece of film-making that would be an absolute sin to see in any other format than 2.35:1. It is completely stunning. The drifting camera lends the proceedings a dreamlike quality that never achieves the “dark underbelly” pathos of Lynch’s approach to the same techniques.
The interplay between the film and the dialogue is also fascinating, as the film circles around the same relationship (at different points, at different times, replaying the same conversation, the same encounter) but subtley switching and undercutting the narrative, which – at least in my case – brought me deeper into the questions it asked. The painting above the fireplace was what, exactly, when we saw the foreplay take place, but in reality seems to be a recreation of a scene from later in the film. That this duality can exist and not seem forced is a marvel, and it’s recreated over and over again.
Resnais has said that the whole film is a recreation of “rape”, and there are no doubt several more interesting interpretations of the film that both take into account his wry sense of humor and swing with all their might at its coy reversals and shifting narrative (dare I use the word diegeses?). But look at the scene in particular when finally it seems these two characters are going to join together, and the way the mirrors are placed to give you a sense that you’re standing right in the room (Pasolini did this in Salo), and how the film seems to grind to a hault while she raises her arms up and cannot speak.
What this film is to me is the burrowing into memory that Proust does, and that’s probably the reason why it ultimately was so effective (I’ve been on a summer project to reread all of the new Penguin translation; it’s not going well). But just to witness the same narrative circling, the same chipping away at what could be memory spliced and splintered together into a seamless dream is a marvel, and I can’t believe I had to wait 28 years to see it.
Other movies* you might want to read about:
- Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] (2008)
- When Bartlett Left the Bear (6-13)
- Chungking Express (1994)
could you please cut to the chase and add a thumbs up / thumbs down icon? just after the title of the post please?