Tuesday, November 3, 2009

twitter review: last year at marienbad

(I'm gonna get back to actual reviews soon, I promise)

tonight's film: Last Year at Marienbad
which, i will attempt to convince you, is a horror film.
this was my go-to date movie in college. it was okay if she liked or disliked it, but if she got angry about a movie where "nothing happened" i knew it wasn't gonna work.
me, i like to wander through movies, and this is one of the most wanderiest movies ever.
if you've read my stories, you can see the influence this film had on Kara-Bakos, or Richter-Goldberg...
this is one of the movies i can watch two or three times in a row.
there was a summer, when i lived in iowa city, when i watched my VHS copy before going to sleep every night.
if you've never seen it, i'd suggest watching it for the first time with no subtitles.
remember when i was talking about two different viewers of films? Marienbad makes that split obvious.
so why is it a horror movie? watch it back to back with carnival of souls.
"From which there is no escape."
"I can lose...but I always win."
to quote egg shen, you were not put on this earth to get it.
robbe-grillet believed this process would be improved with gratuitous nudity and sadomasochism.
i agree, but i guess the people at criterion are not convinced.
none of which takes anything away from Marienbad.
you see, the story is in the telling. who wants a story to end?
but then some people don't like to be seduced.
some people don't like opium, either.
one of the best things about growing older is having to spend increasingly less time suffering fools.
are you doing anything? do you want to come over? don't you remember how we used to be?
do you remember?
"do you remember?"
hey, there's Hitch! Hi, Hitch!
including the stuff you're not supposed to include, and not including the stuff you're supposed to include, that's the definition of art.
now watch it as a second feature with strangers on a train. it's an entirely different movie.
there's an interview with Jhon Balance where he talks about wanting to live in Roeg's films. I'd consider living in Marienbad.
And now here you are again.
robbe-grillet, it should be said, is not a trustworthy narrator.
films which have ripped off scenes from marienbad: the shining, the game, memento, vanilla sky, hypothesis of a stolen painting, la jetee.
try to remember.
perhaps i am not remembering it correctly.
and once again, i walked down these same corridors.
there are rooms that are not rooms, but between-rooms.
watch this movie as a double feature with la jetee and it becomes another movie.
do you remember?
"do you remember?"
and thus last year at marienbad comes to a close. but it is not closed. there is no end. GOOD NIGHT AMSTERDAM!

No comments:

Post a Comment