Last Year at Marienbad was a film that was not logical but ambiguous. It had a sort of enigma attached to it. You could only guess and question the theme without coming to a full conclusion. I agree with Sarah (I think that was her name sorry) when she talked about being tricked throughout the whole film. Because of that feeling of being tricked, I couldn't help but notice that I whole movie felt like a dream from the jump cuts and endless repetition of narrative (if it was that) to the character of "A" and "X" and the demeanor of "M". It was very much a dream-like sequence of event and surreal.
The dream-like mentality of the film reminded me of Freud because his theory of the unconscious through dream interpretation. The conversations between "A" and "X" seemed like it was going on in a dream, revealing what "A" wants rather than what is going on in a state of consciousness. That leads me to René Descartes and his philosophical statement "I think, therefore I am". Descartes questioned whether he truly existed and led to the conclusion that if he thought he existed, then hem ust have existed. I believe that question holds true in the film. Do the characters, the rest of the people, the hotel itself exist? Or does it exist in the mind of one individual, going through a state of unconsciousness? That is what I believe should be asked of the film.
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I think that questioning "if everyone in the film exists other than X" is the right question to ask.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I don't necessarily think that anyone else exists. But, to be honest, does it matter? As long as we know that X is thinking these thoughts, then Descartes' "I think therefore I am" leads us to assume that AT LEAST X is real. If other people exist, we will never know, unless we were to hear their thoughts.
I agree, this movie was f***ing weird! Its very hard to point to one theme or idea and say "EUREKA! Thats what this movie is about!!," because its sooooo layered and complex and confusing to watch.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, I think that this is why the movie is so interesting. Unlike Hollywood movies with their silly rules about strict plot and character developement, this movie is so open ended that everyone gets something a little different from it and has different ideas about what (if anything) is really going on here. I think that is really pretty cool and original way to approach making films. Definitely more artistic then "Good guy beats bad guy and gets the girl in the end yay..."
The film did feel like a trick. It seemed almost as one that was going for some sort of shock value or reaction from the audience more so than the message itself. I think the film was VERY strange and did give me a headache from trying to follow it. I think "X" is real but the others probably aren't as real. They may exist but not in the way that "X" sees them. I like in a way seeing them through his eyes more because it adds to the mood that this film creates for us, the viewers.
ReplyDeleteI certainly believe that the hotel and its inhabitants are a figment of "X's" imagination. I believe that he is so incredibly diluded into his thoughts that he created this elaborate setting to house his delusions.
ReplyDeleteThe hotel can be considered a character in its own right. It's hulking and behemoth and full of odd, lifeless characters and games and symmetry. It's like it has the most personality out of any of the character in the entire film.
I'd have liked to see you play with a Freudian reading a bit. I'm almost not sure how you'd do that. I think we were talking about this in class--with a Freudian reading, there's the manifest content (the story or surface or plot), and the unconscious layer, or subtext. There's wish fulfillment at the subtextual level, but it doesn't manifest directly--what we see on the surface points to what's going on beneath, but isn't it.
ReplyDeleteWith this movie though, surface and depth are collapsed--what we see is pretty much _all_ subconscious/subtextual/wish fulfillment, except that there's no fulfillment either because it's all so static. The division between waking and dreaming consciousness on which a Freudian reading depends just isn't there. Which is interesting.
The question then becomes, is the split between self/other on which a Cartesian reading depends missing too?