Arthouse Classics Trickle Onto Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection has long been noted as the gold standard of home video distributors. One reason is their consistently high technical standards, from laserdisc to DVD and now to Blu-ray. Even more important is their focus on titles that represent significant works of major directors, styles and movements from around the world, covering the silent era through the present day.

Anyone who might decide to watch every film released by Criterion on DVD would wind up with a broad understanding of international world cinema and would recognize the major influence of numerous specific films of the past upon later generations of filmmakers (especially today’s film-school graduates).

Since last December, Criterion has gradually been releasing new titles and re-releasing some of their previous movies in the Blu-ray format, starting with Carol Reed’s brilliant noir thriller “The Third Man” (1949, U.K.), Wong Kar-Wei’s touching “Chung King Express” (1994, China), Wes Anderson’s offbeat “Bottle Rocket” (1996, U.S.) and Nicolas Roeg’s peculiar sci-fi art film “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976, U.K.).

Last spring I reviewed their sparkling new edition of François Truffaut’s impressive first feature, “The 400 Blows” (1959, France). Since then, Criterion has come out with a select and growing group of “arthouse” classics that were once staples of film societies and revival theatres and which must be considered required viewing for any serious devotee of cinema.

Seeing these now in high-definition, after having only seen previous video editions or beat-up 16mm film society prints, is like seeing them for the first time. The remastered Blu-ray discs often look and sound better than they did in their original U.S. theatrical versions.

Among those released just the past few months are such renowned masterworks as Ingmar Bergman’s moody “The Seventh Seal” (1957, Sweden), the recent Oscar-winning fantasy “…Benjamin Button” (2008, U.S.), Henri-Georges Clouzot’s gripping “The Wages of Fear” (1953, France-Italy), Roman Polanski’s cold psycho-thriller “Repulsion” (1965, U.K.), Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epic “Kagemusha” (1980, Japan), Jacques Tati’s droll satire “Playtime” (1967, France) and Alain Resnais’ enigmatic “Last Year at Marienbad” (1960, France-Italy).

“Last Year at Marienbad” (L’année dernière à Marienbad) is nearly a half-century old, yet is a cinematic experiment that is still ahead of its time in the way it handles story material. Resnais collaborated closely with modernist novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, who wrote the screenplay as a challenge to traditional linear, chronological, narrative storytelling.

The story situation is a familiar love triangle. A man attempts to seduce a woman away from the man she is currently with, trying to convince her that they met the year before and she had promised to run away with him after a year. The way this is turned into a film, however, plays around with Robbe-Grillet’s understanding of the difference between mental time and real time, of past, present and future in thoughts, dreams or suggestions.

Robbe-Grillet believed the cinema, with its constant depiction of an immediate present — whether events were actually happening, had happened already (in flashback), would happen soon (in flash-forward), might have happened, might happen or were real or imagined — was an ideal medium for exploring his concepts of storytelling. No character is named, as names are not important when it’s the situation, mood and techniques that dominate.

Director Resnais found Robbe-Grillet’s ideas intriguing and an ideal backdrop for exploring his own very visual sense of storytelling, an exercise in style that focuses on details, poses, lighting and other elements of mise-en-scène, with music and repetitive voiceovers to accentuate the mood. He uses the camera and setting as a primary means to convey information to the viewer, rather than traditional obvious causes and effects or coherent continuity.

Even after such recent variations in traditional storytelling as “Memento,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Pulp Fiction,” watching “Last Year at Marienbad” may be confusing, incomprehensible or infuriating for viewers unprepared for its unusual approach. It had a decidedly mixed reception when first released as well.

It was not accepted at the Cannes Film Festival, but after some initial audience derision it went on to win the Venice Film Festival and got an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. It divided both audiences and critics, who either proclaimed it a modern masterpiece or denounced it as pretentious self-indulgence. Others recognized its dazzling, even hypnotic visuals, but found its content trivial or pointless – which was exactly Robbe-Grillet’s point, that the form itself WAS the point and is what makes cinema an art.

The Blu-ray disc has a beautiful, director-approved high-definition transfer of the meticulously composed widescreen black-and-white image. While there is no audio commentary, helping explain the film are three new sets of interviews with Resnais, with some of the other filmmakers (including Volker Schlöndorff), and with a film scholar, totaling about an hour and a half, and all in high-definition.

Also on the disc are two short and interesting documentaries Resnais made in the 1950s. “All the Memory of the World” (1956) is about the National Library of France, but in many ways a precursor in style and content to “Marienbad.” In a very different vein is “The Song of Styrene” (1958), a poetic depiction in color and CinemaScope of how plastic is manufactured.

The package also contains a 48-page booklet with photos, film credits and several illuminating essays about the film, including Robbe-Grillet’s introduction to the published version of his screenplay.

“LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD” BLU-RAY AT A GLANCE:

Movie: B+ Video: A Audio: A Extras: A

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)