ADDITION - Criterion - Region 1- NTSC June 09' - I'd like to reserve more specific comments on the image until we add the Criterion Blu-ray to this comparison. The Criterion DVD doesn't have the manipulation deficiencies of the Optimum and contrast looks strong. It appears hazier than the PAL edition but comparing the 1080P rendering should give us more information but it would be hard to critique the Criterion in which the 'transfer was supervised and approved by director Alain Resnais'.

Criterion gives the option of restored French audio or the original. Checking out both the differences do exist and the restoration is the way to go in my opinion. Criterion's English subtitles are, expectantly, removable.

Extras are stacked starting with trailers (original theatrical and Rialto's re-release trailer) on the feature disc. The second dual-layered DVD of supplements starts with a 1/2 hour new audio interview with Resnais conducted by film scholar Francois Thomas - author of L'atelier d'Alain Resnais - in 2008 for Criterion. It is 7 chapters in French with English subtitles on a backdrop of stills and some scenes from Last Year at Marienbad. Next is a new documentary on the making of Last Year at Marienbad, featuring interviews with many of Resnais’ collaborators including his assistant directors Jean Léon and Volker Schlöndorff, script girl Sylvette Baudrot and production designer Jacques Saulnier. It is entitled Unraveling the Enigma: The Making of Marienbad. There is a new video interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau on the history of the film and its many mysteries running 23-minutes. She discusses the various interpretations of the film and elucidates some of its mysteries. Criterion have included two short documentaries by Resnais: Toute la mémoire du monde (1956 - 20:57) and Le chant du styrène (1958 - 13:40 16x9) as well as a 46-page booklet featuring essays by critic Mark Polizzotti and film scholar François Thomas, and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s introduction to the published screenplay and comments on the film.

Obviously this is the definitive digital release of the film and we will compare Criterion's Blu-ray when we have the opportunity.

Gary Tooze

***

Optimum
Besides minute colour banding, the image is flawless. Deep solid blacks, good contrast, good details. Simply a superb anamorphic image.

Two things are interesting versus Fox Lorber. One is, that as Optimum is PAL and as such has 4% PAL Speed-Up, Fox Lorber's approx equal duration suggests that it is a PAL to NTSC transfer. The other is that the Fox Lorber has approx 3% more image to the left, while Optimum has approx 3% more image to the right.

While Optimums subtitles are fixed, which always is a point of criticism, they are a pleasure to read. The translation is also different, here saying:

"In a few moments, it will freeze into a marble past. Like the statues in this garden of stone."

Not speaking French, I am unable to determine, which is the most accurate translation.

The additional material begin with a good and informative introduction by Professor Ginette Vincendeau, sitting in a cinema and talking about the films history and its interpretation.

Following this is the documentary "Dans le Labyrinthe de Marienbad" by French critic Luc Lagier, who discusses the films history, the collaboration between Renais and Robbe-Grillet, its structure, various interpretations and finally its legacy.

The last extra is the rare "Toute la Mémoire du Monde", a short film by Renais from 1956, a documentary about Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, where Renais portraits the building, with its processes of cataloguing and preserving all sorts of printed material, as both a monument of cultural memory and as a monstrous alien being.
 

Henrik Sylow