watched it in a film class and walked out when i became infuriated. am I supposed to feel tortured as i'm watching it? if so... why should I have sat through it? from everything I've read the film offers no solution, but from what I saw in the first 30 minutes it also didn't bring up any question that I desired to have answered.
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Well, first of all it is very important and unique piece of cinema history, for starters. It is the mystery film. Cinematography, sets and costumes etc. are all impeccable. So purely from technical side, it is marvellous.
And it can really intrique your mind. Is there something hidden behind? Can we solve it? I cannot give you an answer.
Somehow I don't find this film boring at all. It flows like a river.
"zoom back camera"
You (and most ticket buyers) operate under the assumption that a movies chief purpose is to entertain you. And a majority of films meet you where you are, failing to challenge you at all. Last Year posits that there are so few unique stories to tell that they're interchangable, and the purpose of the movie is to stimulate your mind by withholding standard developments, and force you to a theory about what the movie is showing you.
If you bail early you cheat yourself of more time to explore your theories, and grow your mind.
Eh. Robbe-Grillet himself can explain the movie better than I can. If I have the link to his introduction to the "ciné-roman" (novel for the screen), then I'll post it. But basically he's saying that this movie is every bit as accessible as any other straightforward movie. If you understand what a flashback is, you can understand this movie's playing with temporal placement. The audience intuitively know how film plays, for example, when someone telephones someone and the film cuts to the other party, then playing with editing, with images, with sound, with pacing shouldn't be beyond your reach.
If you can find the ciné-roman at the library, you'll be doing yourself a huge favor. It exists in English translation. He explains the movie better than anyone else does. And he talks at length about the plot of the movie. Basically a guy moving in along in this prison like zombie place, sees a woman among the crowd, and spends the rest of the movie talking to her, pleading with her, lying to her, convincing her, reminding her, we're never really sure which, and neither does the author. It's a constant theme in the author's other movies. And understanding French wouldn't hurt either, since I feel that movies are better off without subtitles, because you're there to watch the movie, not read it. But the movie has a plot (convincing a woman that they met last year), it's kind of a love story, and there's drama. What more can you ask for?
"....this movie is every bit as accessible as any other straightforward movie"
I'm surely this will provoke condemnation but it is my view this statement, even if made by the screen writer himself, is utter bollocks. This film will always split opinion. A statement like the one above can only be made by someone who loves the film. I hated it and have never been so tempted to throw a remote control at a TV. It's incoherent and has the most irritating incidental organ music I have ever heard. If you love it then fair enough but it definitely wasn't for me and reminded me far too much of the later India Song by Marguerite Duras also starring Delphine Seyrig which I think is another abomination.
"can you give me a reason to watch the whole thing?"
No.