Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 198: Fri Jul 19

Destroy, She Said (Duras, 1969): ICA Cinema, 6.45pm


This film, part of the Marguerite Duras season at the ICA, is also being screened on August 6th. Full details here.

ICA introduction:
Marguerite Duras’s debut as a solo director – based on her 1969 novel of the same name – is a film about love and destruction. Shot in gloomy black and white, which serves to enhance the film’s underlying but palpable violence, Destroy, She Said captures a series of encounters between a couple and another man and woman at a secluded hotel in rural France, where they seem to be the only people present. Elisabeth, recuperating after a miscarriage, catches the eye of Professor Max Thor. Meanwhile, Max’s young wife, Alissa, is drawn to an enigmatic German Jew, Stein, who sleeps in the hotel grounds and furtively observes her and Max each night. Amid wanderings and conversations in the forest adjoining the hotel, characters gaze at each other in different configurations and with ambiguous intent. Suddenly, Elisabeth’s husband arrives to take her home, and another angle is revealed.

Here (and above) is an extract.

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