Not just a defining work of the French New Wave but one of the great, lasting mysteries of modern art, Alain Resnais' epochal visual poem has been puzzling, captivating and even infuriating viewers for decades. A surreal fever dream, or perhaps a nightmare, Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad), written by the radical master of the New Novel, Alain Robbe-Grillet, gorgeously fuses the past with the present in telling its ambiguous tale of a man and a woman (Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig) who may or may not have met a year ago, perhaps at the very same cathedral-like, mirror-bedecked château they now find themselves wandering. Unforgettable in both its confounding details (gilded ceilings, diabolical parlor games, a loaded gun) and haunting scope, Resnais' investigation into the nature of memory is disturbing, romantic, and maybe even a ghost story.

Last Year in Marienbad has been announced for a US Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD release by Criterion for 23rd June 2009 at the SRP of $29.95 each. Featuring a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Alain Resnais (with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition), both releases also have the following extras:

• New audio interview with Alain Resnais;
• New documentary on the making of Last Year at Marienbad, featuring interviews with many of Resnais' collaborators;
• New video interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau on the history of the film and its many mysteries;
• Two short documentaries by Resnais: Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) and Le chant du styrène (1958);
• Theatrical trailer;
• Optional original, unrestored French soundtrack;
• New and improved subtitle translation;
• A 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.