Last Year at Marienbad + Autumn Matinee launch

Join us in the cinema as we launch our Autumn Matinee program with the glorious 4K restoration of Alain Resnais' beguiling dreamscape featuring costumes by Chanel.

In an unusual, ornate hotel populated by only the kind of select clientele that could afford to stay there, a man known only as X (Giorgio Albertazzi) approaches a woman, A (Delphine Seyrig). He tells her they have met before in Marienbad and that she told him to wait a year before deciding on whether they should act on their feelings for one another – she claims not to remember. It’s a simple enough premise that’s distorted in execution, with not just A contradicting the man’s version of events but time itself bending and flowing and distorting with the will of the filmmakers.

Directed by Alain Resnais and written by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the pair worked closely to create a clear vision of an unclear scenario, with the dreamlike qualities of the narrative going on to inspire the work of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan (to name just a few among dozens).

Featuring stunning haute couture costumes by Coco Chanel who reportedly provided a selection to best represent the height of the era’s fashion, Delphine Seyrig cuts a fine figure that would have made Coco proud. Transcending the aesthetic, the costumes here give clues to piecing together a timeline and help to navigate what is truly one of the most beguiling films of all time.