Based on Marguerite Duras’s semi-autobiographical novel The War: A Memoir, Memoir of War follows the famed author as she navigates her way through Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Emmanuel Finkiel (Voyages), Memoir of War stars the three-time César Award-nominated actress Mélanie Thierry (A Perfect Day, The Zero Theorem) as Duras, the great novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker who is widely considered one of the leaders of the “Nouveau Roman” literary movement. Her script for Alain Resnais’s 1959 masterpiece Hiroshima Mon Amour earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 1961 Academy Awards.
In the film, it’s 1944 and Marguerite Duras is an active Resistance member along with her husband Robert Antelme (Emmanuel Bourdieu) and a band of fellow subversives. When Antelme is deported to Dachau by the Gestapo, Marguerite becomes friendly with French Nazi collaborator Rabier (Benoît Magimel) to obtain information of her husband’s whereabouts. But as the months wear on with no news of Robert, Marguerite must begin the process of confronting the unimaginable.
Using subtly expressionistic imagery (in collaboration with cinematographer Alexis Kavyrchine) and voiceover passages of Duras’s writing, filmmaker Finkiel evokes the inner world of one of the 20th century’s most revolutionary writers while also tackling a subject that is as highly personal as it is emotional.
Memoir of War was selected as France’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category for the upcoming 91st Academy Awards. The critically acclaimed film was also nominated for Best Film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and earlier this year received a U.S. theatrical release in the country’s top markets by the leading independent film distributor Music Box Films.
Bonus Features
.Q&A with director/screenwriter Emmanuel Finkiel from Film Society of Lincoln Center
.Featurette: From Melanie to Marguerite
.A Conversation with the Film’s Technicians
.Costume and Make-up Screen Tests
.Deleted Scenes
Memoir of War DVD-$29.95
