MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR CRACKED
MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR MOVIE
MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR FULL

вЂњMemoir of WarвЂќ opens with a temporally dislocated feeling that itвЂ™s able to sustain for the duration. вЂњMemoir of WarвЂќ never forgets that Duras published her book with the title вЂњ La Douleur,вЂќ or вЂњThe Pain.вЂќ

Anchored by a brilliant MГ©lanie Thierry, whose stone-eyed lead performance is at the center of almost every frame, FinkielвЂ™s film never betrays the distance that Duras inserted between herself and her own experiences, or that she wrote from the perspective of a vessel as much as she did a subject.

MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR FULL

In its patient and aggressively unsentimental way, this biopic watches as DurasвЂ™ grief starts to sustain itself and grows lungs of its own - in the span of the movieвЂ™s two gray hours, her grief becomes so complete that it no longer needs Antelme to breathe it full of air. вЂњWhen the past is recaptured by the imagination,вЂќ she wrote, вЂњbreath is put back into life.вЂќ

MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR CRACKED

Forty years after the fact, and still trying to make sense of the fugue state she fell into during that time, Duras cracked open her old diaries and collected them into a half-remembered memoir that muddled fact and fiction in order to capture the profound strangeness of a paused existence. Emmanuel FinkielвЂ™s вЂњ Memoir of WarвЂќ - an austere, solitary, vividly internalized adaptation of the autobiographical novel that Marguerite Duras wrote about her experience of World War II - scratches at that grim truth with spellbinding focus and determination.Дuras, an author and filmmaker best known for вЂњThe LoverвЂќ and вЂњHiroshima, mon amour,вЂќ spent her first eternity in the purgatory of Nazi-occupied Paris, stuck in place and scrambling around the city for any news about where the gestapo might have taken her husband, Robert Antelme. 'Melanie Thierry leaps towards the front echelons of current French actresses with her riveting turn as Marguerite Duras in Emmanuel Finkiel's slow-burning Memoir of Pain (La Douleur).Stories about prolonged separations tend to insist that hope keeps people alive, but waiting can be its own kind of death, and absence can become an obsession unto itself. 'Thierry is utterly convincing and compelling from first to last, in a deglamorized but sensual performance of tautly controlled severity and uncompromising rigor.' 'While taking on only a portion of the book, вЂњMemoir of WarвЂќ intelligently approximates its difficult, shifting structure, in which senses of time, place and character are frequently clouded.'

'Haunting and hypnoticвЂ¦ Finkiel evokes the inner world of one of the 20th centuryвЂ™s most revolutionary writers.' 'MГ©lanie Thierry delivers a career-making turn in this compellingly austere adaptation of Marguerite Duras' autobiographical novel.'

MARGUERITE DURAS THE WAR MOVIE

'This isn't a movie about set-up and payoff, it's a movie about the torment of being stuck in your head, and the insoluble loneliness of walking through a crowd of people who are oblivious to your private suffering.' 'A punch to the gut - but also remarkable for its specificity.' 'Duras insists that we remember, and there is no question her message of empathy and repentance is needed more than ever.' Whereas the filmвЂ™s first half plays more like a thriller, the second half proves to be an emotionally wrenching interlude perched on pins and needles.' 'Among its many notable achievements, вЂњMemoir of WarвЂќ is one of the best films IвЂ™ve seen about the ways in which grief can pull a person in both directions simultaneously. вЂA deeply humane and thought-provoking film, Memoir of War features surely one of the performances of the year from MГ©lanie Thierry as the protagonist.вЂ™(RTE) 'MГ©lanie Thierry's portrayal of the alternately tender and ruthless writer is fascinating.'

SOFITVCINE 4, CINEMAGE 11, Tax shelter, Inver Invest RГ©gion ГЋle de France, Eurimages, Fondation Carac Versus production, Need productions, France 3 cinГ©ma, Same PlayerД¬entre National du CinГ©ma et de lвЂ™Image animГ©e, Preview screening Cine Lumiere May 15th Week Commencing 24th MayДЄdapted from La Douleur (The War: a Memoir) by Marguerite DurasДЄntoine-Basile Mercier, Jean Goudier, BenoГ®t Gargonne

Marguerite duras the war