The films which immediately preceded and followed "Marienbad" in Resnais's career showed a political engagement with contemporary issues (the atomic bomb, the aftermath of the Occupation in France, and the then-taboo subject of the war in Algeria); "Marienbad" however was seen to take a completely different direction and to focus principally on style. Commenting on this departure, Resnais said: "I was making this film at a time when I think, rightly, that one could not make a film, in France, without speaking about the Algerian war. Indeed I wonder whether the closed and stifling atmosphere of "L'Année" does not result from those contradictions."