Nathalie Granger (1972)

Nathalie Granger: Directed by Marguerite Duras. With Lucia Bosè, Jeanne Moreau, Gérard Depardieu, Luce Garcia-Ville. This art film has no conventional dialog between the main characters. This tells a strangely compelling story of two women in a suburban home who are listening to radio news broadcasts about a missing child in their area.

“Though I donu0026#39;t know anything about French social contexts during the 1960u0026#39;s and 1970u0026#39;s, though I havenu0026#39;t read any of Durasu0026#39; works, though I canu0026#39;t figure out what is the message behind this movie, I still feel u0026quot;Nathalie Grangeru0026quot; is one of the most beautiful films ever made. The beauty of u0026quot;Nathalie Grangeru0026quot; doesnu0026#39;t come from its visual quality nor the objects it depicts, but from its serenity and the way things are represented. I have to quote the phrase u0026quot;makes my heart cave inu0026quot; from u0026quot;American Beautyu0026quot; to describe my feeling for this movie, because thatu0026#39;s what I really feel, and the feeling I get from u0026quot;Nathalie Grangeru0026quot; is in a way similar to the feeling I get from the dancing plastic bag scene in u0026quot;American Beauty,u0026quot;though u0026quot;Nathalie Grangeru0026quot; is not didactic at all. As for me who donu0026#39;t understand any symbols hidden in u0026quot;Nathalie Granger,u0026quot; the great sense of enjoyment I get from this movie comes from its sublimation of simple things and of domestic chores. Duras makes me look at simple things again in such amazement, such wonder, such astonishment of how beautiful they actually are.For me, the table cleaning scene is one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history. Though I might have seen people clearing tables a thousand times in my life, I still feel I have never seen anything like this scene before. Duras can capture the beauty and the charm of simple things into her film, and by representing them like something we have never seen before, she also captures the hearts of the audience. Another thing that impresses me a lot is the performance of Lucia Bose, especially in the scene with Gerard Depardieu. I like the expression on her face very much when she listens to the salesman. The radio broadcast about murderers at large is another thing that I like. There are also many other extraordinarily beautiful and calm scenes in this movie: the tearing up of paper, the piano playing, the charactersu0026#39; walking, the things that they do with leaves, and the shots of a baby carriage. I describe only my feelings here, not the meaning of this movie, because a few books have already deciphered it. Though Iu0026#39;m aware that the feeling I get might not be what Duras intended, I still feel very grateful for her for opening my eyes to see a wonderful kind of beauty, and for giving me a rare and precious sense of u0026quot;nonconforming serenity.u0026quot;”