India Song

This remembered this French film as one being in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I didn't know what it would be like, but critics gave it good reviews, and it got recognition at film festivals, so I looked forward to watching it. Basically set in India in the 1930s, Anne-Marie Stretter (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie's Delphine Seyrig) is the wife of the French ambassador. She married a French colonial administrator at the age of 18, travelling with him to Savannakhet, Laos, there she met her second husband who took her away to various place in Asia for 17 years. Now in Calcutta, Anne-Marie has grown bored with the oppressive lifestyle she leads, she begins compulsively sleeping with other men to alleviate her situation. The Vice-Consul of Lahore (Moonraker's Michael Lonsdale) fails in his attempts to begin a love affair with her. Her husband is aware of her promiscuity but is tolerant of her indiscretions. Also starring Mathieu Carrière as Attaché, Claude Mann as Michael Richardson, Vernon Dobtcheff as George Crown and Didier Flamand as Young guest. The story is told with very little dialogue, and the score by Carlos D'Alessio, mainly set in three or four parts of the mansion and the garden, with often random character voice-overs. The characters display peculiar behaviours, such as walking slowly, standing still, walking backwards, dancing together and lying on the floor, all dressed in tuxedos and glamorous dresses, hardly anything happens at all, it is both strange and fascinating to watch, but an interesting enough experimental fantasy drama. Worth watching!

This film is a landmark in feminine avant-garde aesthetics. Because of its painfully slow rhythm throughout the film, the spectator is forced to take a certain distance and a critical position to the way the film has been constructed: she/he can no longer reconcile with an illusion pretending to reflect the world as we are used to seeing it being represented ( > conventional aesthetics of cinema ), but is on the contrary obliged to take an active, intellectual position thinking about the narrative structure of this work of art - and furthermore - what might this characteristic of the film represent. In fact, the slow rhythm along with the sensual colours, shapes, perfumes and sounds transmitted through the film could easily be seen to reflect Duras'conception of "jouissance féminine".

Cult films, with a slow speed, filmmakers have produced a lot in Europe, many in Brazil and Asia, and some even in Hollywood, industry that excels by the narrative cinema of fast cuts and action and comedy and adventure without complications in the plot (and now increasingly chroma key due to the billionaire success of the superhero movies Marvel & DC Comics). And why such a huge phrase?! To contrast, my friends, to contrast (this i learn in the brief workshop "Creative Writing for Comments on YouTube"). Because Marguerite Duras masterpiece apparently fits the cult movie label that no one watched because they collapsed from boredom. But they made a mistake. Hassle is a missing element in this good piece of film. The off-screen narration is the perfect guide to the dance of characters flowing across the screen and above all to the coming and going of the protagonist Anne-Marie Stretter (Delphine Seyrig) in doubt about what love she would choose. Pure cinematographic poetry (man, this deserves a hashtag ... #PureCinematographicPoetry... okay, I liked it). ps: translation brazilian portuguese/english made by Google (blame on it)

She's great, it's her vision which is superb. She made this film cos she wanted us to be a poet. No wonder India Song is very unique among all other films. I watched a lot of films, but I've never been met a picture like this. Which threaten you to be a poet. No action, no story, no climax, just her vision. To watch these art house flicks, process of understanding and analyzing is most important, it will sharpen up your vision, then you can use it in your everyday life, and it will definitely makes your life richer mentally. Someone once said, to read Duras's books, it's just like writing a book. So, maybe, to watch her movies is like co-creating a film also. Old memories is like a ghost story. I once read Mrs. Stretter really exists and India Song based on Duras's memory. It's fun to look at the beautiful ghosts singing and dancing

This film was a real surprise when I discovered it in the early '90s and it became one of my favorites. I enjoyed the general slow pace of the film, its dreaminess and yet its inner violence.It's exactly what I imagine tropical climates do to influence your mood .In the same vein Marguerite Duras made "L' Amant ", a semi autobiographical film. Anyway, you CAN find the video VHS-SECAM . I "stumbled" on it in a bookshop in Montpellier a couple of years ago. Here are the details : India SONG Ecrit par Marguerite Duras Entretiens Dominique Noguez Réalisation Jérôme Beaujour et Jean Mascolo Benoît Jacob Vidéo 2001

Don't ask me what this movie is about! I don't have a clue. the plot and the characters... it's all a blur...But that's besides the point. India Song is like a visit to a museum, when you're only interested in admiring the beauty of the works of art. you can smell the deep scents of each scene. the incense, the dew on the grass at dawn, the perfume, the cigarette smoke. the musky smell of old curtains in a locked up room, next to a stagnant swamp, full of mosquitoes buzzing about. you can taste the wine. the music is like a trance. a very rewarding synesthetic work of art, if you're patient enough to really see (i nearly wasn't). just don't ask me what it's about! (and personally, I found the main actress really ugly and don't know why all those men saw in her)

Duras is a good writer, but a terrible film maker. When you watch one of her movies - and I have imposed a few to myself - you know you will watch somethings that has some interesting ideas, but that lacks any movie making skill. This film which is supposed to take place in India, but which was filmed in France, does good efforts for a virtually no-budget film. I love the opening scene, and the silent, narrative atmosphere led me into thinking this would be a good film for about 15-20 minutes. The main problem is that it gets old quick. at first it's a bit captivating, some original way to make a movie, etc. After 20 minutes you just want anything to happen, you want it to be well filmed, you would like the actors to do more than what a wax figure could do. After an hour and a half I wanted to shoot myself. You need some guts to finish this film, if you want my opinion, mostly because of how long it is, but also because of how bland it gets.

If you're looking for a typical movie India Song is definitely not for you. The highly experimental movie is both long and smashes a lot of the rules for conventional cinema. It teaches YOU how to watch IT. The plot, such as it is, is about the wife of a French Ambassador living in Calcutta. Bored she engages in a series of love affairs. This information is provided completely in narration that plays over a series of ghost like images in which we see the ambassador's wife dance and walk and flirt with a handful of other people in a mostly empty and abandoned looking mansion. It's essentially a ghost story. I have nothing against slow films or unconventional ones but this simply wasn't for me. Delphine Seyrig acts out the part of Anne- Marie Stretter, the wife, but watching her I was reminded of that OTHER famous movie she did in 1975, also experimental and unconventional and also directed by a woman who was a cinematic powerhouse: Chantal Akerman. In terms of plot there's not a lot to tie Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielmann to Marguerite Duras' India Song, but the two feature a similar style of long shots and repetition. That said I find Jeanne Dielmann by far the easier of the two to watch. While that movie is hypnotizing and entrancing Duras' movie feels stale, like a book of hers that was never quite able to come to fruition. A movie that perhaps only Duras devotees or Seyrig fans will love.

This was meant as hypnotic cinema for people who aren't hypnotized by watching junk, who aren't hypnotized by Spielberg; if you don't like it, leave it alone, it just wasn't meant for you, do not cheat—it's tricky not to cheat. What some claim it is boring only brings forth a person's own deficiencies. It only brings forth the garbage inside, your own inabilities and defects. Confronting those is certainly tough. It's the gist of the cinema to hypnotize; and it's not the storyline, or the plot, that which hypnotizes. Resnais, Robbe—Grillet, Mme. Duras, Tati do that. By asking less from the cinema, one cheats, and one feels it. In its way, this movie by Mme. Duras is exquisite; I have seen it a quite long time ago, more than 6 yrs ago. Its leading actress, Mme. Seyrig, is certainly exquisite.

It's unfortunate that this film is not available in vhs or dvd form for the viewing public. India Song is a great example of Duras' reworking of the traditional relationship between sound and image. The emphasis on the sound track is a crucial aspect of the film as the viewer is actively challenged to figure out which voice belongs to which character and the chronology of events in the narrative. Ofcourse, this separation of sound and image can be troubling for some and unfortunately Duras' films are often labeled "difficult" . But for those up to the challenge you won't be disappointed.