There is no point to heap further praise on Marguerite
Duras' _India Song_, a perfect fusion of writing, sound,
music, set design, camera movement, and acting. It is
unlike anything I know, and is more brilliant than all the
work of Agnes Varda and Chantal Akerman put together.

Duras's screenplays are famous for their incantatory
monologues, the sense of time and (exotic) place inextricably
linked together (is _Zombieland_ inspired by Duras?), the
complex woman protagonists. Rewatching the Duras-written
_Hiroshima Mon Amour_ recently not only confirmed it is
one of the greatest films ever; it was also ten times better
than I remembered it. Memory, war, the torment of imagination
are again front-and-center in _Memoir of War_ (adapted from
her memoir by Emmanuel Finkiel, assistant director of _Three
Colors: Red_) -- with less playfulness, more terror. I
marvel at Duras' humanism, her empathy for the German-loving
French girl in _Hiroshima_, given that the Nazis torture
her own husband almost to death. There are another half a
dozen haunting films starring Jeanne Moreau and Delphine,
penned by Duras or adapted from her published work. It is
an astonishing cinematic output.

s for her directing, _India Song_ is among the most
visually and aurally hypotic film I have seen. Rather
unkindly, the Criterion DVD supplementary disk interviews
raise the question: how much of it was Duras' work? It
seems sexist. No one asked that about Paul Auster's or
Neil Jordan's films when they were primarily known as
writers. Duras' long-time producer assures us she helped
choreograph the complex, dance-like motion of the actors.
Her assistant director Benoit Jacquot, on the other hand,
seems eager to take credit in "translating" the wishes
of Duras, who apparently did not want to learn the
technical jargon.

Cinema is a collaborative art; not every director has gone
to film school. They rely on cast and crew to carry out
their visions. I can imagine Melanie Laurent telling
her cinematographers and assistants: I want this action
sequence in _Galverston_ to look like the single-take
scene in "True Detective" episode 4! (Minus the racism.)
The lighting and camera motion in _The Mad Women's Ball_
to resemble Godard's _Nouvelle Vague_! The ending of
_Plonger_ to look like _The Big Blue_! And its frenetic
opening to be halted by the stillness and yearning of
Maria Valverde --- accompanied by the entirety of a 7-minuate
aria! And they deliver it perfectly.

Perhaps the only way to rate an experimental director like
Duras is to consider his/her entire oeuvre. (Not that she
needs further honors to secure her place in history, but
pretending to judge and rank is what moviegoers do.)

_Baxter, Vera Baxter_, adapted by Duras from her play
_Suzanna Adler_, is the only other Duras-directed film I
have seen, due to the lack of subtitled DVDs. She
apparently did not like the play, which I have not read,
and made major changes. This film is unlike _India Song_
in every way. The score consists of a short hillbilly
wannabe chord repeated to distraction. There is hardly any
camera motion, and -- especially in the second half --
the main character Vera lies on her couch, barely moving.
She is having an affair, probably arranged, even paid for,
by her philandering husband. In the resort town everyone
knows more about her affair, and those of her husband's,
than this infantilized child-wife. I don't even find the
dialogue interesting, and the pathos is spoiled because I
have already seen the better, more recent adaptation by Benoit
Jacquot. By comparison, Duras' film has so little compassion
for her protagonist, or for anyone at all.

It seems I need to see a lot more of Duras' directing
work to form a more informed opinion.

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