Nathalie Granger (1972) - film review

Nathalie Granger is a French film first released in 1972, directed by Marguerite Duras.  The film stars Lucia Bosé, Jeanne Moreau, Gérard Depardieu, Luce Garcia-Ville and Valerie Mascolo.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.

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Nathalie Granger by Marguerite Duras is an aesthetico-philosophical opus-film. The strictest logic of its visual images moves us to the feeling that we - while observing the still and harmonious life in a quiet and prosperous household - never expected to get, of the incompatibility between traditional spirituality and a child’s psychological needs.  It is one of the miracles of this film that the concept of traditional (above-worldly) spirituality is not defined but is interpreted by two profoundly intelligent actresses: Jeanne Moreau and Lucia Bose.

Nathalie, a girl of pre-adolescent age who is being cared for and loved by two extraordinary women - the mother and the "aunt" - unexpectedly starts to express stubborn resistance to the very atmosphere of sublime spiritual calmness that characterizes their household. At school she starts to express animosity towards other kids. What has happened to this seemingly gentle child, in spite of her caregivers’ always positive and patient efforts?

The film answers this question in a provocative yet solidly articulated way mobilizing the power of the cinematic medium to make the point gently but irreversibly. The film doesn’t look like a philosophical argument, although it certainly is, and it influences our cognition through a psychodrama that approaches the viewers’ mind through their feelings and their consciousness through their intuitions.  To watch Nathalie Granger is a challenging but stimulating and rewarding experience for those who in their life and thinking don’t follow authoritarian clichés and seductive songs of entertaining ads, but who are instead prone to try to make up their own minds about life and the world.

Please visit www.actingoutpolitics.com to read an essay on Marguerite Duras’s film Glimpse of Eternity in Black and White (Beauty of Two Wise Souls in Noble Flesh vs. Child’s Stubborn Vitality), with analysis of shots, and also essays on the films by Godard, Resnais, Bergman, Kurosawa, Bunuel, Alain Tanner, Fassbinder, Bertolucci, Maurice Pialat, Moshe Mizrahi and many other important filmmakers.

© Victor Enyutin (Seattle, US) 2010

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