Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		5.0

Last Year at Marienbad 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 27, 2024

Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include archival program with second assistant director Volker Schlöndorff; archival video essay created by critic James Quandt; documentary on the making of the film; and more. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

The players

A chic European hotel. A man (Giorgo Albertazzi, The Merchant of Venice) meets a beautiful woman (Delphine Seyrig, Blood on the Lips) and the two begin talking. The man insists that he once had an affair with the woman. He tells her how they met at Marienbad, what they did and how they parted ways.

The woman is puzzled. She does not know the man and is certain that they have never met before. But the man seems to know a lot about her; much of what he utters is true. Who is he? Is it possible that they met, and she forgot about him? Is it possible that they had an affair? She does not believe the man and walks away.

The man follows the woman. He tells her more about their affair. He even explains how they agreed to meet a year after they parted ways. The man also mentions a shooting. Something bad, the man cannot recall exactly what happened. Does the woman remember? No, she does not.

In a secluded corner of the hotel, another man, who has been observing the woman from afar, lures its guests into a card game he insists they could never win. The game -- a series of cards displayed in a certain way are to be removed; the loser always gets the last card -- attracts many, but no one ever wins against the man.

Scripted by French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet (La Jalousie), Alain Resnais' L'Annee Derniere a Marienbad a.k.a. Last Year at Marienbad (1961) is the quintessential art film. It is perplexingly beautiful, impressively maddening, and impossible to fully deconstruct.

Last Year at Marienbad is also a bold exercise in form. Director Resnais intentionally emphasized form over narrative -- contrary to what the Nouvelle Vague promoted -- which confused immensely those who at the time had praised and embraced the fresh straightforwardness and elegant simplicity of Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders (1964). As a result, Last Year at Marienbad effectively split audiences and critics into two groups, one immediately proclaiming that cinema had finally evolved into an art form, and another dismissing the film as a pretentious pseudo-intellectual drivel.

Both groups, however, agreed that Last Year at Marienbad conveyed impressive style. The chic looking hotel, its elegantly dressed guests, as well as the beautiful camerawork separated Last Year at Marienbad from practically every other film made at the time.

Last Year at Marienbad is composed of a number of different segments that belong to a larger story. It is practically impossible, however, to align them in a manner that successfully reveals the mystery surrounding He and She. At best, one could speculate about their relationship.

One of the more interesting segments from Last Year at Marienbad is focused on a card game. A man appears and announces that when he plays cards he never loses. Throughout the film, the man is seen observing She from afar, an act some have interpreted as a sign that he is somehow related to her. Others, however, have insisted that he represents something far more sinister.

This permanent sense of uncertainty is what makes Last Year at Marienbad a film impossible to forget. While viewing it, one is slowly immersed into a constant game of guessing with endless possibilities.

Last Year at Marienbad 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of Last Year at Marienbad is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray disc is Region-Free. However, the Blu-ray disc is Region-A "locked".

Please note that all screencaptures included with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc.

The combo pack introduces the recent 4K restoration of Last Year at Marienbad that was prepared at French lab Hiventy on behalf of StudioCanal. The 4K restoration has appeared on Blu-ray in various markets. We have reviews of Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release here and StudioCanal's British release here.

In native 4K, the 4K restoration cannot be viewed with Dolby Vision or HDR. However, this is probably a very good thing because in several areas of the film there are intricate shadows and shadow nuances that almost certainly would have looked too dark had the 4K master been graded with Dolby Vision or HDR. Screencapture #2 is from one such area. On my system, the entire film looked gorgeous. A few daylight panoramic shots were reflective of what I consider to be reference quality too, though a lot of the indoor footage is also very, very impressive. However, I was not surprised because the 1080p presentation on the Blu-ray looks great as well. So, should you consider an upgrade if you already have the Blu-ray release? If you have a very large screen or project, and you wish to have the best possible presentation of the film, I think that you should. Why exactly? In native 4K, all visuals retain a spectacular tightness, and with their excellent fluidity, the presentation looks very solid/even. I would describe the 1080p presentation very, very similarly, but I think that trained eyes will spot some areas where it is clear that it is a 1080p presentation. Grain can appear slightly looser, some native density fluctuations might be a bit more obvious, and during a few transitions fluidity may not be as solid. In other words, the native 4K presentation offers miniscule improvements, which will be appreciated by trained eyes but may not be registered as such by some viewers. Ultimately, I think that the 4K restoration of Last Year at Marienbad is excellent and looks lovely on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray.

Last Year at Marienbad 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this release: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

The 4K Blu-ray uses the same restored Mono track that was included on previous Blu-ray releases of Last Year at Marienbad. I do not have any new comments to add. It is very healthy and stable. There are no encoding anomalies to report.

Last Year at Marienbad 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this audio commentary was recorded by novelist and critic Tim Lucas.

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this audio commentary was recorded by novelist and critic Tim Lucas.

• Interview with Volker Schlondorff - in this archival program, Volker Schlöndorff, who served as a second assistant director on Last Year at Marienbad, recalls how he was hired for the job (which apparently requited that he adheres to the communist views of Alain Resnais and his assistants), and discusses the film's ambiguous script, the overlapping of elusive events throughout the film, the shooting process and the director's working methods, etc. There are also some very interesting observations about the evolving nature of film making at the time. The interview was conducted exclusively for Kino Lorber in 2019. In English, not subtitled. (33 min).

• Last Year at Marienbad A to Z - in this archival visual essay, James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque, examines the conception of Last Year at Marienbad and then attempts to solve a number of its enigmas. The essay was created exclusively for Kino Lorber in 2019. In English, not subtitled. (52 min).

• Memories of Last Year at Marienbad - this documentary focuses on the production history of Last Year at Marienbad, and features an enormous amount of raw footage from the shooting of the film that was captured on 8mm stock. In German, with optional English subtitles. (49 min, 1080p).

• All the Memory of the World/Toute la memoire du monde (1956) - a poetic piece about the French national library in Paris and the archiving of memory that looks forward to Alain Resnais's later films Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad. In French, with English subtitles. (22 min).

• Trailer - a vintage French trailer for Last Year at Marienbad. Remastered. In French, with imposed English subtitles. (4 min, 1080p).

• Additional Trailers - trailers for the following releases from Kino Lorber's catalog:
  
  1. Woman in Chains
  2. The Nun

Last Year at Marienbad 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lover of classic European cinema must have a copy of Alain Resnais' mind-bender Last Year at Marienbad. Several years ago, this fascinating film was beautifully restored in 4K and released on Blu-ray, and now, it is also available on 4K Blu-ray. I think that it looks excellent on both releases, but the native 4K presentation offers a few miniscule improvements which trained eyes will appreciate. (The 4K Blu-ray release is a combo pack, so it has a Blu-ray copy of the 4K restoration as well). VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.