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The central mysteries of Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad still baffle critics and audiences to this day. The film is a fixture on most critics’ greatest-movies lists and maintains a strong cult status among cinephiles. Marienbad has just been released as a Criterion Collection special edition DVD & Blu-ray, enabling a new generation of film lovers to ponder how this film could be so loved and be such a cultural touchstone when it can also seem like such a tedious experience.

Marienbad’s three main characters are known simply as X, a handsome man (Giorgio Albertazzi), A, a beautiful woman (Delphine Seyrig), and M (Sacha Pitoëff) who may be A’s current lover or husband. The film plays out various scenarios with these three archetypes (I hesitate to call them “characters”). X (also the narrator) tells A that they have met before last year, and they may or may not have agreed to meet the next year. The couple has an affair, but then it seems like they never had one. M catches them in the act and kills A — then he doesn’t. (These are not really spoilers, btw.) The film is like a list of possible plot devices for the characters. Sean Axmaker likens the narration to “the introductory paragraph to a novel read over and over again.”

This all plays out in corridors, expansive gardens and luxury suites of an extravagant Victorian hotel (filmed at two Bavarian chateaus). My favorite interpretation of Marienbad is that it’s the visual projection of a writer’s mind. X is telling the story about his relationship to A, and the film plays like the writer’s train of thought as it’s overwhelmed by the possible directions the story could go. The screenplay is by experimental novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, so a film analysis involving the writing process can’t be far off.

If the premise still sounds dull, don’t worry: The synopsis doesn’t even begin to describe the experience of seeing the film. Marienbad has the feel of a horror film, with a strange tension held throughout. The widescreen cinematography by Sacha Vierny (Peter Greenaway’s favorite cameraman) is crisp, dreamlike and iconic. Combine that with the bizarre and hunting organ score by Francis Seyrig, and the film creates an experience unlike any before it. Kubrick’s The Shining owes a lot to Resnais and the sinister atmosphere he created.

Released in 1961, the film became something of an art house sensation along with Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Polanski’s Knife in the Water. But what make Marienbad stand out is how the film is able to elicit so many interpretations, with no one viewer’s experience the same as another. Though it seems strange now, that’s how the film was originally marketed. Marienbad was billed as a puzzle (and says so in the trailer) and it actually drew an audience with that premise. Today, a film like this would have to be disguised as a romantic drama or a mystery, as there’s no room in the marketplace for films that cannot be categorized. Last year’s Synecdoche, New York and My Winnipeg are recent victims of this fate.

The Criterion print of the film is near perfect (as always). Special features include two short documentaries by Resnais, “Toute la mémoire du monde” (1956) and “Le chant du styrène” (1958). There is also a new documentary on the making of Last Year at Marienbad, featuring interviews with many of Resnais’ collaborators, and interviews with Alain Resnais and film scholar Ginette Vincendeau on the impact of the film. There is no commentary track, surprisingly enough — but that seems a deliberate choice, seeing as the film plays best when not explained.

Very few films have had the guts to break with convention and become an animal all their own. Fewer still have resonated with audiences. Last year at Marienbad is a testament to the endless possibilities of cinema. The countless remakes and sequels Hollywood is currently cranking out don’t signal the end of truly original cinema; it’s just that Hollywood is afraid to take risks. More films like Marienbad could fill the emptiness that’s so prevalent today at the multiplex. If only more filmmakers had the guts.

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