Last Year at Marienbad (1961) 96/100 – If you would have asked what I felt about this film after the first thirty minutes, I would have told you it was arthouse tripe. But something happened at around the 30 minute mark… I fell asleep. I had been tired when I first ventured into this film, not a smart thing when one is dealing with a French new wave film, and I slept for about an hour. When I awoke, I found where I had been when I dozed off and continued on. But then I felt myself being sucked into the surrealistic imagery. It reminded me of the feeling I have for Classical music Tone poems, which is what this film kind of replicates. Is it a dream, or maybe a nightmare, could it be an allegory for French society? It is so ambiguous that I finished it a little over an hour ago, and my mind is still fixed upon many scenes. My favorite scene is when the camera rushes through the hotel and bursts through a window and expands upon the garden grounds, which are bathed in a most luminescent sunlight. A few guests of the hotel are scattered around the courtyard, and they are motionless, just like the statues that rim the perimeter. But the guests draw long shadows on the ground, yet the trees and the statues do not. It’s a strikingly beautiful shot, which reminded me of a Rene Magritte painting. There are countless other scenes that are meticulously crafted throughout this film’s duration and make for a rather confusing, yet fascinating venture into the realm of surrealism. Would I recommend this film to everyone…hell no! It is too vague, too ambiguous and maybe one could say, a bit too weird for most people’s tastes. But if you love a film that makes you ponder, haunts your mind, then this is a film for you. I can see where this may have been influential to other directors in the following years. Many times throughout, I could see where Kubrick had borrowed some elements for The Shining and also maybe, Polanski for certain ways to depict abstract horror in Repulsion. I’m definitely going to revisit this film again. But for now, it’s time to delve into the plethora of extras which are on disc two of the Criterion set.