Reconstructing history

On the surface Renais' "Last Year at Marienbad" is confusing, but there is a key to the movie, something very basic about how the human mind works. The great Argentinian writer, Jorges Luis Borges, points out that people regularly interpret the past in terms of their own time and misunderstand the cultures of the past. A lot of fundamentalist commentary on the Bible makes this mistake. Something similar is happening in this movie. The male lead sees a woman at a distance and at best has one or just a couple of conversations with her, but what he does later in time is conflate that minor connection with her into a grand love affair. Notice how one possible love scene begins with the camera moving quickly towards her, and then the scene suddenly breaks off. That's because it never occurred. It's all wish fulfillment. Looking back on his previous year he reconstructs his stay at the resort.
This is more than just a stream of consciousness tale. It is a film about how we can easily delude ourselves. Notice how ordinary the man actually is. He survives on his delusions.