Last Year at Marienbad

(Note: This review refers to the Blu-ray version of the DVD.)

The very definition of art cinema, Alain Resnais' 1960 "Last Year at Marienbad" defies audience identification, narrative clarity, even any assurance that anything we see is "real" in any sense. Characters without names, played by actors who barely change expression, walk through the lavish but coldly alienating vacation castles reserved for the rich and aristocratic, lost in time and space. It could be a ghost story (the church organ score is appropriately eerie and ominous), a remembrance or a dream, all taking place in a European castle that could be the foreign version of the Overlook Hotel. And as the mysterious man (Giorgio Albertazzi) tries to convince the coolly elegant woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they had an affair last year, it could be simply an elaborate tale, a seductive promise cutting through the stifling existence of social decorum.

The new transfer is superb; the perfectly sculpted and intricately art-directed imagery looks astounding, and the rich cinematography practically shimmers on Blu-ray. The original half-hour documentary "Unraveling the Enigma: The Making of Marienbad," featuring all-new interviews with production designer Jacques Saulnier and second assistant director Volker Schloendorff (among others), offer details of the making of the film and insight to the collaboration. Alain Resnais is conspicuously absent from the documentary but is present in a generous 33-minute audio-only interview, illustrated with stills, script pages with director's notes, and sketches and brief clips. Also includes early the short documentaries "Toute la memoire du Monde" and "Le Chant du Styrene," and a booklet with new and archival essays. Criterion returns to the paperboard case and slipsleeve design of their earlier Blu-ray releases. Also available on a two-disc DVD edition, also in a paperboard package.