Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with the untethered, seemingly “mind-of-its-own” navigation of the camera, let us look to one particular scene as a microcosm for the ever-changing built space on display. As the film progresses and some inkling of a plot becomes apparent, this foregrounded ambiguity becomes more than a stylistic choice; rather, it materializes the repressed turmoil of its characters. Almost exactly midway through the movie, X doubles down on his efforts to remind A of their previous encounter. We are never told where this occurred (“In Karlstadt, Marienbad, or Baden-Salsa. Or even here in this salon”), nor if it ever did occur. Regardless of their detachment from reality, the images are always at the service of the narrator’s whim; wardrobes, locations, time – all are indexical to X’s memory. This is apparent in a selection of five chronological shots (see image above), starting 42 minutes in. From the pairing of dialogue and visuals we can assemble the sequence like a four-dimensional puzzle, situating each moment in time and space. Even such an exercise requires a degree of diagrammatic subjectivity, considering the castle plan can never be entirely accurate due to shifting monuments and nonsensical continuity. Consider the cuts from shots B to C, and C to D: the mirrored blocking of Seyrig’s figure in the frame bookends an apparent non sequitur of her and Albertazzi standing on a balcony. However, Seyrig’s position in shots B and D temporarily obscures the fact that she is in an entirely different locale within the castle. Why this strange jump? Because at that moment, X tells her: “One night, I went up to your room;” Resnais opts for jarring the audience into new settings, forcing them to play catch-up with the abruptness of X and A’s back-and-forth, instead of tailoring the narrative flow to the spectator’s expectations. That being said, there is an undeniable logic to how the film is edited, primarily due to the fact that every shot was dictated in the script; Resnais himself has mentioned that anybody with Robbe-Grillet’s screenplay could have made the same movie. Sylvette Baudrot, the production crew’s continuity girl, was assigned the herculean task of mapping the entire chronology of events, ensuring no one on set lost sight of where and when each piece of the film was taking place. While a high degree of control resided over the making of Last Year at Marienbad, the director was never interested in sharing what any of it meant, or if there was any inherent meaning to begin with; “It’s not my role to give explanations,” said Resnais in an interview shortly after the film’s release. “For that matter, I don’t think the film is a real enigma. By that I mean that each spectator can find his own solution … meaning that my solution is of no more interest than that of any other viewer.” It is a divisive experience by design, but that calculated mystery sown into the very fabric of the celluloid is what has kept the picture alive all these years.