India Song (1975)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Marguerite Duras

Writer:

Marguerite Duras (writer)

Release Date:

4 June 1975 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Country Name In Title | Place Name In Title

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Delphine Seyrig	...	Anne-Marie Stretter
Michael Lonsdale	...	Le vice-consul de Lahore (as Michel Lonsdale)
Mathieu Carrière	...	L'attaché d'ambassade allemand
Claude Mann	...	Michael Richardson
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Georges Crawn
Didier Flamand	...	Le jeune invité
Claude Juan	...	Le domestique / Servant
Satasinh Manila	...	Voix de la mendiante (voice)
Nicole Hiss	...	Voix intemporelle (voice)
Monique Simonet	...	Voix intemporelle (voice)
Viviane Forester	...	Voix intemporelle (voice)
Dionys Mascolo	...	Voix intemporelle (voice)
Marguerite Duras	...	Voix intemporelle (voice)
Françoise Lebrun	...	Voix de la réception (voice)
Benoît Jacquot	...	Voix de la réception (voice)

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Portugal:M/12

Company:

Les Films Armorial

Trivia:

The soundtrack of this movie was recorded separately from the movie itself, and later re-used in full in the movie Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert (1976).

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Polyester (1981)

A 'silent' movie permeated by the ghosts of a colonial past

I was taken aback at first - the complete absence of spoken dialogue from the cast was a bit unnerving - instead, the film consists of two strands, visual and aural. Visually, the film is slow, languorous and visually sensual. It is almost a 'silent' film. Aurally, the film consists of voices over, providing not so much a narrative as recollections. The voices over (not being a fluent French speaker I had to rely on sub-titles) are telling a story of events that happened in the past whilst the cast act out the events as though they are the ghosts of the buildings in which the events were played out. But there is a story - of a woman married to a French diplomat, living for the time being in Calcutta, who takes lovers to relieve the tedious boredom of social niceties (and the heat, dust and flies). This story is punctuated by one scene in which someone who has fallen in love with her makes his feelings known to her and then, betraying the norms of his society, declares his feelings and his despair, by getting emotional about it - very emotional. I was transfixed. Fortunately, I watched it on DVD having recorded it from BBC4 - so I've got it to watch again, as I shall most certainly do.