Last Year at Marienbad (1961) - Directed by Alain Resnais

I’ve never been comfortable with any associations that were made between Alain Resnais and The French New Wave movement. Although his most popular films came out at the same time as Godard and Truffaut were taking off with Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959) respectively, the connection had to have been based on his being French and making innovative films. Other than that, his films share little in common with the movement. Night and Fog (1955) was Resnais’ coming out party, a painfully moving documentary on the Holocaust, filmed at Auschwitz, it was a haunting piece on the lingering aftershocks that such a horror can leave. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959) was a beautiful love story between a Japanese man and a French woman who seem to be connected cosmically through both personally tragic moments, and larger scale horrors, like the bomb on Hiroshima. Somehow Resnais was able to make the connection between past and present in both of those films in ways that are original. I’ve always felt Resnais had more of a kinship in a way with Jean Cocteau, the surrealist director of Blood of a Poet (1930) and Beauty and the Beast (1946). The way Cocteau played with mirrors and time and space are reflective of what Resnais does with his masterwork, Last Year at Marienbad.

Though not as tragic or humanely compelling as his previously mentioned works, Marienbad is one of cinema’s great enigmatic puzzles. It’s a rule-breaking kind of film that was structurally innovative then and in its own way, still compels, exasperates, and inspires deep reflection of what film can be. Resnais’s film opens with a cryptic repeated voiceover as we’re introduced to a grand and stately hotel through tracking shots down the halls, replete with visions of the gilded and artful ceilings. There is almost no one seemingly occupying the place. After several minutes of this, we see people. We have no idea who they are or what their purpose is but they are watching a play of sorts. It's the presence of a noticeably artificial stage play presented to the audience that should be a clue to us as we watch Last Year at Marienbad. What we are about to see cannot be trusted. 

We’re introduced to a woman, “A” (Delphine Seyrig), a man “X” (Giorgio Albertazzi), and another man “M” (Sacha Pitoeff). We witness scene after scene of questions that X asks to A, exchanges of cryptic dialogue, moments between them that may have happened last year or may have not, remembered as if they just occurred a moment before, or didn’t at all. Then of course, M comes into the picture and throws the whole thing for a loop, creating a love triangle perhaps. Resnais directly plays with our consciousness of time in that he cuts directly from one moment that may have been to another moment that either may be, or may have been as well. There’s little delineation between what happened, what is happening, or what might have happened. It appears that M is married to A and their interaction reflects a jealous husband suspecting a cheating wife. My question is whether A knows X at all from any previous interaction. Sometimes it appears like they are remembering their happenings from one year ago, and at other times we think they’re meeting for the first time.

Of course the whole thing could also be interpreted as a grand ghost story. More than once, there are indications that one or two of the characters might be dead and that we are witnessing their ghostly interactions. Although there are numerous other people filling the old hotel, they feel distant from the action as if they are wandering aimlessly, filling up the scenery but not really there. Adding to the haunted house quality would be the weird/ghoulish organ music composed by Francis Seyrig, played nearly constantly over the soundtrack. Resnais’s film holds a kinship with Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), where the reality of what we see cannot be trusted. Also several more recent films play with reality in its many forms like this: Shutter Island (2010), Inception (2010), and several of David Lynch’s films like Mulholland Drive (2001). Last Year at Marienbad still feels innovative and unique though because of its never ending ability to puzzle us and unlike the films I mentioned, it doesn't really tip its hand, as far as I can tell, leaving the viewer to bask gloriously in the mystery even after the film is over. It's a cold and distant film emotionally, but its artful and carefully composed shots, the smooth pans of the camera through the glorious hotel, the labyrinthine structure, and the haunting ambiguity are a testament to Resnais’s unique vision, making it an art-house classic that continues to beguile us.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) - Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's films seem to always balance a fine line between comedy and tragedy. Sometimes they spill over to one side or the other, but they usually remain well balanced. This one is about Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) who in his later years is trying to woo his wife (Anjelica Huston) back and reunite his pathetic kids (Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller) back into the fold.

I think the first half of the film plays more comedy. It's a very particular kind of comedy though. Anderson's actors are always trained at the Bill-Murray-Deadpan-Dry school of acting. Nearly every ounce of emotion is drained from the actor's faces and they deliver every line in a monotone, dry voice. This stone-faced acting can be referenced back to the "The Great Stone Face", Buster Keaton. He acted in his silent films with the driest, most stone-faced expression. Watch a film like The General and tell me there isn't a line drawn to Bill Murray and the others in this film.

What sets up the comedy is a mise-en-scene that is very manicured and perfected by Anderson. Everything about the sets, from the decor, the outfits, the hairstyles seems to add up to a greater purpose. Anderson sets up every shot in this symetrical fashion where he uses the entire frame to present us a picture, complete and an entity unto itself. Often he places several people across the frame in a row, or a single person in the middle of a wideshot. I think this creates an artificial appearance, a doll-house world in a way. So much care is placed to everything in every shot that we can't help but sense the artificiality of the world in which these characters live. It's this doll-house quality that sets up the comedy. But, it's an introverted comedy, not extroverted. Extroverted is The Marx Brothers, Dumb and Dumber. This is something else. Anderson's films remind me of the great Jacques Tati, whose "silent" comedies in the 50's and 60's are remarkable. I say silent in the fact that although sound is employed in the film, it's not dialogue that provides the comedy. It's the mise-en-scene and the actions and coincidences occurring in the scenes that are funny in a very amusing, whimsical way. I remember watching Tati's Play Time at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago several years ago in 70MM. I was awestruck at the massive use of widescreen to fill the frame with the set. Every inch of the frame was used to set-up the comedy and the effect of the whimsy. Tati was clearly a perfectionist in the way he created his artificial world. Anderson is similar in this way and took this "doll-house" approach to the extreme in his next film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Anderson had a large set created of a side-cutout boat where the viewer can see all the rooms in the boat and everyone moving about. I think The Royal Tenenbaums is not quite to this extreme, but it's the way these characters move about within this world that creates both the comedy and the tragedy.

This is also a very self-aware and self-referential film, reminding me of the cinema of the French New Wave, particularly Jean-Luc Godard in films like Breathless, Band of Outsiders, and Masculin, Feminin and also Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating. These are films filled with in-jokes, cinema references, hipster moments of cool, and a pervading sense of self-awareness. That was what the The French New Wave was out to do. Break down the barriers of cinema and create movies for people who knew movies. They wanted to do things their own way and not follow the formulas. Anderson clearly enjoys making movies for people who like movies and doing it his way.



Some other motifs I noticed? One is the contant use of pink and red. It reflects the heart of the film and the emotions of the characters as they wade through the family garbage. At one point, one character actually bleeds his love for another. Everyone is pining for another and several hearts are either broken or will be broken throughout the film. Also there is the theme of the "place of respite". Characters retreat to closets, bathrooms, and even tents in order gain some peaceful moments away from the chaotic family dynamic. During the second half of the film, the tragedy comes more to the forefront and there's a pervading sense of melancholy. It's not like it turns on a dime, but the film does switch over midway through and changes tone.

I really love Wes Anderson's movies. I don't think any actor/actress will ever win an award in any of his films, but it's his sense of direction that I love to submit to. There's a sense that he has complete control of what his film is doing and where it's going.