Tuesday, 28 March
INDIA SONG 1975
Short url:
Directed by Marguerite Duras
120 minutes
In French with English subtitles
Marguerite Duras chiseled out an indelible name for herself in the canon of French literature, but what is less known is that she also directed movies. In both mediums she strove to reinvent everything, to break the rules of the game, to explore, and find a deeper truth than what others were offering.
Set in Calcutta colonial India, actress Delphine Seyrig plays Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of the French ambassador, who lives in a suffocating atmosphere. In a way, she is oppressed by her privilege, isolated and surrounded by a world of poverty and suffering. Her veranda windows are open, but suffering can be heard in the distance. She has secret love affairs with visiting diplomats, leading a certain vice-council to fall madly in love with her, to the point of insanity. A slow romantic piano piece plays on the soundtrack, surround by heat and hunger. Here we see the the poverty of the upper class—all the things happening to the poor outside the veranda window are also happening to those enclosed within this gated community—starvation, sickness, loneliness, abandonment, suffocation, madness—but for the wealthy colonialists the manifestations are spiritual rather than physical. As one viewer said "No film to my mind links classism, sexism and racism together so daringly..."
But the real essence of this flick is its unfolding, how Duras went to zero, and reinvented cinema through images and sounds—creating something absolutely unique and piercing. It still remains one of the boldest achievements in alternative-narrative cinema. It works like a half-dream, a tapestry of repetition and variation. I was just watching an interview by Lars von Trier, and I was a bit surprised he mentioned this as one of his favorites—he was clearly floored by its stubborn originality. Disorientating and hypnotic, devastating and haunting... it's unlike anything else you have ever seen. This film is so off-beat there is no way it can work commercially, and therefore it is rarely screened these days... despite the fact that it has a huge cult following, and many consider it an unparalleled masterpiece.
Date & Time:
Category:
- film
Topics:
- CINE INTERZONE
Price:
- 3-5 €