India Song (1975)
Directed by Marguerite Duras

Film Review

In spite of the fact that she made around twenty films, Marguerite Duras is far less appreciated as a cinéaste than as a writer, and India Song could explain why that is the case.  No one would dispute Duras' claim to be one of the great literary writers of the Twentieth Century.  Her command of language, her imagination, humanity and intellect are apparent in virtually every line she wrote.  Her talent for making films is less evident, and it's ironic that some of the films which most strongly bear her imprint were directed by someone else - for example, Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) (which she scripted) and Moderato Cantabile (1960) (based on her novel), directed respectively by Alain Resnais and Peter Brook.

India Song is more of a cinematic oddity than a great piece of cinema, an experiment in technique that, whilst it holds a certain fascination for the seasoned film enthusiast, is unlikely to earn Duras a reputation as a great film director.  The film is striking in several ways.  Most surprising is Duras' decision to separate image and sound.  The two elements are connected - i.e. what we hear manifestly relates to what we see on the screen - but there's an obvious disconnection: we don't hear the actors speak and sometimes we hear far more than we see.  It's like a silent film to which a voice-over narration as been belatedly added on.  Whilst the image is confined, languorous, virtually static, often with actors frozen in position for minutes, the soundtrack is vibrant, emotional, filled with colour and depth.  We “see” more through the sound than we see on the screen, and this is what makes it such an unsettling experience.  In conventional cinema, the image assumes a far greater importance than the accompanying sound; here, the reverse is true.

At two hours in length, the film is expecting a lot from its audience, and it's hard to see how it benefits from such a long run time.  The novelty of the film's unusual style holds for a surprisingly long time but ultimately it does fade; when it has done so the film does begin to appear a tad ridiculous, like a joke that has been played too long.   It can be argued that Duras even compromises her own artistic integrity by employing such well-known and talented actors as Delphine Seyrig and Michael Lonsdale, amongst others.  Why bother using such fine actors when their abilities are not required by the film?  It's rather like hiring a Harley Street consultant to attend to the birth of a pet gerbil - not so much an artistic statement, more a pointless extravagance (or cynical marketing ploy).

Whilst there is an unsettling, very tangible poetry in this film, it in no way lives up to the literary power of Duras' writing.   Whereas the novel is gripping in its intensity and lyrical expression, the film feels cold and detached, as though the story it recounts is viewed from a very long distance, its narrative force depleted by passage through a thick distorting lens.  India Song, the film, is primarily a cinematic curiosity, an exercise in artistic self-indulgence that pales into insignificance when set aside its author's many greater achievements.

Film Synopsis

India, 1937.  Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of the French ambassador, has a comfortable existence in Calcutta but, with so few things to occupy her, she soon becomes hopelessly bored.  To relieve the monotony of her pampered life, she embarks on a series of romantic liaisons with various government officials.  Anne-Marie is a charming and highly desirable woman, and young men are drawn to her like moths to a candle flame.  In the course of an embassy ball, she meets the Vice Consul Lahorre, who is at once enchanted by her beauty.  So intense are Lahorre's feelings for Anne-Marie that he is soon overcome by an almost insane desire and has to be driven from the ambassador's palace like a sick animal...