Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Alain Resnais’s tedious, beautiful, and silly Last Year at Marienbad is almost more interesting to read about than it is to view, the reactions are so wildly varied. Since its 1961 release it has become one of the more polarizing films ever made, on zillions of best-of-all-time lists and as many worst-of-all-time lists, while almost everyone considers it indecipherable. This isn’t a movie for those interested in Hollywood-style entertainment, so the majority would just look baffled.

Surreal? Not really. As an art professor I can tell you that the word surreal gets bandied about a little too often, particularly by film people.  I’ll also add, with some oomph behind it, that when confronted with indecipherable our typical response is either “bullshit,” or “chickenshit.” (By the way, “art” is a praise word; you don’t call yourself an artist or label your “stuff” art, let others say such things about you or your work. Of course don’t mind me, you can do so if you like.)  Dreamlike maybe? Okay, whatever. If nothing else the film offers one more filmic take on the dream state, however elementary, and not meant to be deciphered, not meant to be understood, and especially not meant to be responded to. It seems to have vomited itself up, as if a Psych 101 study group made a list of all of the different things that happen in dreams, and then tied the experiences together with film and fishing line and called it a narrative: that of a man attempting to convince a woman that they shared an affair in another time and another place — perhaps last year, at Marienbad. She resists, and the bulk of the running time is ostensibly concerned with his fleshing out of this elaborate fantasy, though it’s really just an excuse to stray into pure formalism and call it art, with the hope that the pastiche of imagery will be enough to hold one’s attention for the duration. Look for something authentic or question the thing, or express any misgivings at all and you run the risk of appearing oafish or uncool. (and it’s amazing to consider this film has held such power over audiences, and repelled criticism for more than fifty years now. I won’t even begin to attempt to fathom its Oscar nomination in the screenplay category.) Yet it remains that this is movie, or rather film (movies tell stories) is too vain, too obviously collaborative, and too damn superficial — and it appeals to those qualities in its viewers. Have you heard it before? Too much style, not enough substance. This ain’t artsy folks, it’s banal. Why do you think it’s so popular? 

If you want to read the film as an examination of dreams, or even the fleeting nature of memory, go ahead — you get 93 minutes to wallow in it. Marienbad is a visually striking film that despite all of its formal decadence refuses to function as a drama. It cannot pass muster merely through the power of the still image — the difference between the still photograph and the film is one of duration, and so the presentation of a succession of striking vignettes, either wholly disconnected or connected with a wink and a smile, does not add up to a worthy cinematic experience, at least not for me. If so, it’s a lazy one. As such, film is inherently inferior to the traditional arts. If viewers are supposed to be enthralled by the cinematic experience and the means by which it unfolds then let’s find better subject matter. Call me bourgeois, but I care little for Resnais’s beautiful people and their vapid dreams. After all, if these characters are people I’d hold up for scorn in waking life, then how in the world can I love a film that explores their dreams? On the merits of the formal qualities alone? Maybe — the technical filmmaking here is masterful, but that just isn’t enough for me. By the end of the first hour I was squirming at the redundancy of the dialogue, the repetition of imagery, and even the grotesque artificiality (how often can she pose?) of Delphine Seyrig. Tedious.

In the end, Marienbad has as much power as the advertisements for Chanel No. 5 it inspired. 

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Directed by Alain Resnais

Starring Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi

Running time: 94 minutes
Grade D

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

I’ll ask for a measure of forgiveness up front as I’m likely about to commit cinematic blasphemy. Is it wrong for me to suggest that Vittorio de Sica’s 1971 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner would have been a more interesting film had it not been set in the days leading up to the Second World War? Of course I realize that the story wasn’t plucked out of thin air, but based on the novel by Giorgio Bassini and narratively entrenched. Yet here in the 21st century I find my emotional response to the troubles of a exorbitantly wealthy and emotionally detached young woman and her pampered circle of friends somewhat lessened by the more visceral holocaust-themed films of the past two decades. I’ll come back to this later.

I like de Sica very much. Shoeshine (hooray, I have a copy!), Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thiefare extraordinarily powerful films, and while I find Marriage, Italian Style grating, Two Women (by the way, can we get a better print?) is a personal favorite — the scene in which Sophia Loren’s character encounters a group of G.I.s along the road and asks them to help her daughter is unforgettable. I’m wishy-washy concerning The Conformist, a highly disconnected and mildly self-indulgent trance of a film that scores more points for the impact of a few key scenes than it does as a finished whole. Both The Conformist and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis feature Domique Sanda in featured roles — though it’s a toss up as to which film does better by her. It would be easier to argue for The Garden, were it not for a single scene (the one in the woods, you with me?) at the end of The Conformist. Nevertheless, in Sanda we have an actress of astonishing beauty. The camera loves her so much that whenever she’s on-screen, in one of her abundant close-ups or no, you’re convinced she must have been the most beautiful woman in the world — and for what it’s worth I’m no fan of blondes.

Sanda plays Micol Finzi-Contini (not Nicole — as she proudly corrects the Italian secret police when they come for her), the icy and ultra-sophisticated daughter of the titular clan. Tall, blonde, smoldering, and if not absolutely aryan then at least positively non-Jewish — as another of the film’s cast of characters remarks about all the Finzi-Continis. Micol has confined herself to the estate’s expansive garden and its tennis court, where she entertains numerous friends now that the fascist government has forbidden Jews from belonging to athletic clubs. The drama methodically escalates along two parallel tangents: at once following the soapy and angst-ridden romantic entanglements of the group of friends while, outside the protecting walls, their country inches ever closer to cataclysm. For her part, Micol is oblivious to the happenings outside her personal Eden, believing herself protected by her family’s money and five-hundred years at the top of the Ferrara caste system.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is not a neo-realist film like those that put de Sica on the international map in the years following the war. Professional actors fill all of the lead roles, and the production values are straight out of Tinsel Town. Quite frankly, this is one of the most beautiful films of its era, and it boasts a score by the director’s son that demonstrates that nepotism could, on occasion, be a very good thing. The influence of Hollywood filmmaking creeps in at the edges though, in the most cloying kind of way, as in pure summer-of-love style characters often move through an autumnal landscape to the accompaniment of wistful piano music — the only difference being that were this a Hollywood production there would be vocals. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, anyone? Kotch, maybe?

My nagging problem with the story is its Titanic-like, yet unnecessary reliance upon real history to provide its characters’ lives with a sense of gravity that they wouldn’t otherwise have. It strikes me as manipulative and cheap, and like Titanic, a bit dirty. And here’s the kicker: If the religious / war subtext were removed, and the heft of the story placed on the Finzi-Continis and their inter- and extra-personal relationships, I might care be more engrossed, instead of constantly pushing aside the thought that while they cavorted inside the walls of the estate, real things were happening to far less fortunate people outside them.

The film is often describes as one of the greatest of all time, yet I’d like to dig into the lives of this unique family without the guilt that comes with doing so — guilt that comes from caring about the petty problems of a family so undeserving and oblivious. de Sica would like for us to weep for Micol and the rest of the Finzi-Continis, but we can’t — our tears would be better spent upon those who didn’t blissfully turn their backs on the madness around them.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

Directed by Vittorio de Sica

Released by Cinema 5 Distributing

Running time: 94 minutes

Availability: Widely via DVD.