Last Year at Marienbad

Last Year at Marienbad remains one of the greatest cinematic mysteries of modern times and a defining work of the French New Wave. Alain Resnais’s masterpiece is an enigmatic, dreamlike tale of a man and a woman (Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig) who may or may not have met one year ago in the decadent, cathedral-like château they now wander.

Though he initially resisted the widescreen technology, Resnais shot the film in Dyaliscope, a French adaptation of Cinemascope’s anamorphic lens system, taking full advantage of the format to emphasize sweeping vistas, reflective surfaces, and lavish interiors that continuously upset any sense of space and time.

Part of our Cinemascope series.

In French with English subtitles