‘Last Year at Marienbad’ Narrative Analysis

For this class assignment, I watched this film with Kam Yit Ling! :D,

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Chronological order of the movie: Very inconsistent and irregular.

Q: Do you think the way this film is told works best for your story (in regard to the Alter Ego Assignment 1) ? How would you re-tell the story?

Yit Ling –  Flashbacks of the relationship between Emily and Alexy can be incorporated. Whereby Emily constantly shows affection to Alexy, would help in the story line of my film to build the history between them, so that the viewers can be more engaged in their relationship.

Yi Ling –  Flashbacks of the relationship between my grandmother and I can be added into the film as we reminisce about my childhood. I think the characters in my film in this case ought to be realistic with the age when it comes to flashback. Like when the flashback scene comes on, a child version of me and a younger version of my grandmother ought to be there.

Q: What makes this narrative (Last Year at Marienbad) work?

– The story centrals around Frank’s point of view about the female protagonist. Hence, it entwines the past, present and future of their relationship together.

– Metaphorical interpretations of their hallucinations/ potential conscience brings about depth of the characters and their inner struggles.

Q: Does this non-linear narrative work for other films

-Sci-fi, Fantasy and Thriller films would go very well with this form of narrative, such as The Time Traveller’s Wife,

Interstellar

Alice Through the Looking Glass.


What we like about this film?

– The cinematography is amazing. Everything seems aligned perfectly.

-We liked how they connect one of the hallucination/past memory with the present scene with the same dialogue, but different scenario. For instance when Frank was counting in the room with the female protagonist as he try to incur memory out from her in the past, the scene changed into the ball room scene where the female protagonist’s husband was counting the cards.

-Flashing of the 1 second scene whereby the female protagonist is holding her shoe, when she is in fact in the bar tells us that she might have remembered something about the past she can’t recall.

– The multiple reflections of the female protagonist in the mirror can be interpreted as her different selves in the past, present and future.

– The triangle arrangement of her own reflection can symbolize loss and confusion of her current situation, as well as the past she don’t recall.

Doubts about this film we had:

– We do not understand the purpose of having the freeze moments, whereby only one person moves. The movements are focus and exaggerated.

– We do not understand why they kept repeating the dialogue over and over again in different scenes.

– Frank always used past tense to talk to the female protagonist, so we had this illusion that Frank can travel through time. However , if it is really the truth, why would Frank lose to the female protagonist’s husband in the gambling game? Is he a psychopath who is trying to enforce certain ideas onto the female protagonist, or is he trying to mold her into the memory he believes in??

 

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