My first Alain Resnais experience.

Harmon 2022-03-23 09:02:48

All I'v got from this are:
Moving Camera, people in stillness when camera moves, stillness people in background when character moves, people in the shadow, people with different directions of shadows.
Strange man with his trick.
High heels, Jewelery
Baroque architecture, Royal Court, Corridors, Fountain, mirrors, Triangle shaped trees, Statues, Staircase
Long takes
Majority text was delivered through Voiceover, Extremely loud and annoying Organ music.
Actor stays in the same gesture between transaction cuts. Actors with exact same hair and makeup throughout the film.

A few scenes did remind me of French New Wave.
the hand held camera running towards the end of the corridor, and keeps shouting "nong, nong, It wasn't true, it wasn't by force...". and then a series of overlapping editing of the camera running into the woman with wide smile and arms open.
Contrasting, in the next scene the woman wears a black cape as to she was wearing that white further dress.
A bunch of shot inserts of the woman in her bedroom with white dress on, during the scene they were talking at the bar.
Another overlapping editing scene when the woman runs into her room and jumps into her bed, also the use of breaking of 180 degree rule.

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Extended Reading

Last Year at Marienbad 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.

  • X: I must have you alive. Alive, as you have already been every evening, for weeks, for months.

    A: I have never stayed so long anywhere.

    X: Yes, I know. I don't care. For days and days. Why don't you still want to remember anything?

    A: You're raving! I'm tired, leave me alone!