Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Alain Robbe-Grillet (scenario and dialogue)

Stars:

Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Delphine Seyrig	...	A - la femme brune
Giorgio Albertazzi	...	X - l'homme à l'accent italien
Sacha Pitoëff	...	M - l'autre homme au visage maigre, le mari
Françoise Bertin	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Luce Garcia-Ville	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Héléna Kornel	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Françoise Spira	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Karin Toche-Mittler
Pierre Barbaud	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Wilhelm von Deek	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Jean Lanier	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Gérard Lorin	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Davide Montemurri	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel (as Davide Montemuri)
Gilles Quéant	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Gabriel Werner

Storyline

In a huge, old-fashioned luxury hotel a stranger tries to persuade a married woman to run away with him, but it seems she hardly remembers the affair they may have had (or not?) last year at Marienbad.

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Plot Keywords:

surrealism | hotel | french new wave | uncertainty | persuasion | 

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Taglines:

Evocative, compelling, fascinating, different - an important motion picture, an exceptional work of art from the brilliant

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France Italy

Language:

French

Release Date:

7 March 1962 (USA)

Also Known As:

Last Year at Marienbad

Filming Locations:

Antiquarium, Residenz München, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$19,113, 20 January 2008, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$143,381, 10 August 2008

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cocinor, Terra Film, Cormoran Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Partly inspired by Adolfo Bioy Casares' fantastic novel "L'invention de Morel".

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Goofs

Exterior night scenes were shot day-for-night, but the sky and reflections of it were allowed in the frame, and they appear as bright white instead of black. This may have been intentional to emphasize the surreality of the film.

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Quotes

[X wanders through the hotel's corridors cataloging items he sees]
X: Empty salons. Corridors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick carpets. Heavy hangings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glasses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass partition, letters.

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Connections

Referenced in The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)

User Reviews

A mystery, a love story, and a haunting exploration of memory

Scenes at a European spa unfold while a man's mind tries to recollect a love affair of the past season. In one of the most deeply psychological films I have seen, memory itself seems to be the protagonist -- or is it the villain? What plot there is simply provides the material for a meditation on the uncertainty of knowing. The accomplishment of _Last Year at Marienbad_ is to make this point convincingly even in the case of that which one would not expect a man to have difficulty remembering: a sexual involvement and loss. It does so by a hypnotic combination of wheeling, dreamlike images of the resort's architecture and grounds, together with the incantatory, obsessive, recurrent tone of the narrative voice over. In doing this it also transforms a place where people go to be waited on and to play, into a labyrinth haunted by unsmiling shades, where remembering is both impossible and necessary.