Side by Side: Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour

Alain Resnais’s first two features are polarizing art films that cast a spell on the audience but don’t demand to be solved.

The Marienbad Game is a short, two player card game in which cards, or match sticks if you prefer, are dealt in rows of 1, 3, 5 and 7. Players can pick up any number they wish in a turn so long as they draw from the same row. The person forced to pick up the last card loses. The rules matter not, because “Last Year at Marienbad’s” “M” (Sacha Pitoeff) always wins. The film’s patrons speculate and strategize fruitlessly, because the brain teaser seems to have no obvious answer.

Neither does the movie, and Director Alain Resnais, who was still making films but passed away in March, would laugh at the idea that a film or work of art needs to be scrutinized and solved (see: Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon). “Last Year at Marienbad” resists interpretation.

The film is about a man seducing a woman at a luxurious hotel by trying to convince her they’ve met a year before. He tells an elaborate story rife with details and she plays along while continuing to deny any recollection of their meeting. That description makes it sound like a romantic comedy, but the movie is a gloomy, sprawling and sumptuous fantasy. It’s also a polarizing, yet hypnotic dream of a movie that meanders and blares endlessly.

Continue reading “Side by Side: Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour”