Destroy, She Said

In a hotel cut off from the world and ringed by dense forest, four people meet. Max and Alissa Thor, Stein and Elisabeth begin spending the same days in the same rooms. Max is drawn to Elisabeth, the wife of an industrialist, who is trying to recover after a loss. Stein, for his part, has become attached to Max’s young wife and former student. As the stay goes on the identities of the four begin to run together and who is saying what becomes unclear. Rather than telling events the film builds a state; the dialogue and the silences are the account itself. Michael Lonsdale appears in Marguerite Duras’s ninety four minute French film, completed in 1969.