_Memoir of War_
From
septimus3 NA@21:1/5 to
All on Wed Jul 3 21:22:16 2019
Director Emmanuel Finkiel was Kieslowski's assistant on the set of _Red_,
which I consider the greatest film of all time. Finkiel made the much-praised _Voyages_ afterwards but nothing else has appeared in U.S. theaters since.
I watched _Memoir of War_ via streaming; it would have been a very different experience on the big screen. But I suspect I would have admired this literary,
tough-minded exploration of women waiting for the return of husbands more on the big screen. The film is adapted from Marguerite Duras' semi-autobiographical
novel, and must have taken much of the monologue from the book; the writing is beautiful and haunting, obsessively circling back to key phrases; it is reminiscent of _Hiroshima, Mon Amour_ also penned by Duras. The film score is also reminds me of that era. The protagonist's vivid imagination as a writer does her no favors -- she keeps imagining the worst things that may have happened to her husband shipped off to a concentration camp. Melanie Theirry has never been my favorite actress, but she is astonishing here, playing a highly intelligent, dignified, yet completely human character. _Memoir of War_
is an essential film, a great companion piece to Tavernier's _Life and Nothing But_. (And to think that some in the U.S. still embrace Fasicsm.)
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