Last Year at Marienbad was released in 1961 and it has polarized audiences ever since. Perhaps only Resnais’ subsequent film, Muriel, has been more intensely vilified by so many critics. Pauline Kael hated both films, denouncing Marienbad as a film about “non-people.” She was right in a way. This is a film about living ghosts, who freeze in space, as time moves own. This is a film about people whose future is all used up.
