nathansnook

Last Year at Marienbad

“𝘠𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦.” In old fashioned Resnais dream sequence, a stellar black and white picture in the descent of first romances, thorns of remembrances, and the post-collection, the looking back, the misremembering, situating the self somewhere between the past and the present. Does the soul belong in the same place as the body? Where does real existence lie? The star of the show is the editing. Really fun, interesting cuts. Literally gasped when Seyrig is in her stark white room in a puddle of shoes when a J-cut laugh track leads into her crashing into the woman, cutting back and forth, only for glass to be picked up in pieces in silence. It’s beautiful, full of glamour, adds to the charm in dream narrative, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth by today’s standards, but when you look at it, these aren’t people. Only mere entities. They have no backgrounds but this singular, shared memory, real or imagined, trying to find understanding. It makes you think if two different consciousnesses ever find each other outside of bodies in corporeal agreements. “𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳’𝘴 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘥.”