In the 1930s, the wife (Delphine Seyrig) of the French ambassador in India spends her dull, gilded days in the company of many lovers. One of the director’s most well-known films was based on an unproduced play she wrote in the early 1970s, inspired by her visits to India when she was a teenager. Those impressions are not really evident in this film, which was made in France, mostly in the magnificent Château Rothschild. Much of it comes across like a fevered, poetic dream; bittersweet nostalgia in the shadow of colonialism. Exceptionally slow.
1975-France. 120 min. Color. Written and directed by Marguerite Duras. Cast: Delphine Seyrig (Anne-Marie Stretter), Michael Lonsdale (The Vice-Consul of Lahore), Mathieu Carrière (German embassy attaché), Claude Mann, Vernon Dobtcheff, Didier Flamand.
Trivia: Jack Nicholson was allegedly considered for the male lead. Followed by Son Nom de Venise dans Calcutta Désert (1976).