Nathalie Granger

Two women in a house. The day passes: dishes are washed, work is done in the garden, the radio is on, conversations break off half finished. Nathalie, the child of the house, has been in trouble at school and what to do about her is unresolved. In the afternoon a washing machine salesman comes to the door and talks for a while. Marguerite Duras's film tells no story; its subject is the silence inside the house and the passing of time. Jeanne Moreau and Lucia Bosè play the women, and a young Gérard Depardieu the salesman. The telling shows the women's position in the house without explaining it. Patient viewers love Duras's cinema; for everyone else it is too still.