✅ Memories are the baroque trompe-l’œil palaces we live in.
✅ A Fourier transform between “the complexity of thought, of its processes” (Resnais) and a science fiction-ish time loop with ever-accumulating discrepancies, uncertainties, and artifacts (Polaroids).
✅ Last year’s scandal might be merely X and A taking off together, so there’s no ending but endless reboots with coalescing conflicting variations.
It’s always too easy to refer to Ebert, but in this case it seems appropriate because I think it’s one of the best reviews he ever wrote.
Note on a Detail
In the theater, during the final shot when the hotel goes dark, I noticed what looked like a shuttle or ambulance entering from the left and stopping in front of the hotel. At home, I checked the 2018 Studiocanal version, and there it was, easily overlooked: 1:33:32 to 1:33:40, right before the cut to the end card. In the context of the movie, the presence of a car strikes me as pretty outrageous, but nobody else on the internet (at least in English or French) seems to have noticed and commented on this. I can’t check the 2009 out-of-print Criterion version or the original, unrestored version, but as the Studiocanal version is known to have boosted details in the shadows, that detail might have been invisible before. However, I suspect that it’s actually a miscut, that the car is a production van that appeared after the scene was finished but the camera still rolling, and I also suspect it happened while restoring the film from its original camera negatives. Further information welcome!
L’Année dernière à Marienbad by Alain Resnais, 1961.
Watched at the Metropol theater on April 21, 2026, in its original language with subtitles.