Having seen Duras' earlier film Nathalie Granger for the first time this morning after breakfast, and promptly posting a positive review for it, I found nothing better to do after dinner (It has been raining all day) to see Baxter, Vera Baxter, also for the first time.
Before the introductory titles are finished, we see, in bright colours, a high class, pale, semi nude woman lying down in four different poses. What we hear, however, is the sound of the sea. When the film "proper" begins, we see a modern house, and learn by an off screen voice that it is for rent. A scene in a tavern or hotel introduces a clerk that tells a female visitor that the house is rented out every summer to Vera Baxter, and also that something terrible happened there some time ago. There is a journalist present who has tried to get in touch with Vera Baxter without any success. The visitor repeats the name with great accuracy; "Baxter, Vera Baxter". And then the music begins. The music?
Yes, the music. During the remaining film there is a constant loop of some basic guitar chords and a high pitched flute that are intruding on both the characters and the viewers. It seems there is some party of strangers nearby, but no one ever sees it. The sound is never distant in a natural way, however, but very much on the soundtrack, and creates very much a stage of its own, an autonomous sound stage, so to speak. This is not unlike that of the sounds of the beggar in India Song, but my reaction to it is quite different: In India Song it gave the film an extra dimension that I found totally mesmerizing, but this flute soon got on my nerves, I must admit. And perhaps the effect is intended but the characters do not seem to mind, on the contrary, they, at least the life weary Vera Baxter, connect it with life and with living.
It seems to be some secrecy involved in the renting of the house. Jean Baxter has already rented it, but his wife Vera is not informed about this, and she is not certain that the price is right. First we see Vera taking to an old friend at the house, but she soon leaves. The visitor then mysteriously enters the house, meets with Vera, and the rest of the film takes place there, only interrupted by some fine exterior shots of the surrounding woods and the beach by the Atlantic. Much of the dialogue is obscure, as is expected in a Duras script, and I do not intend to offer any extensive analysis of it after a single viewing. Treason and infidelity abounds, as can be heard in a phone call from Jean. The visitor enquires about her marriage but also seems to play her part in the game,
The house also plays its important part. It is a fairly modernistic piece of architecture; vast windows from floor to ceiling revealing a landscape covered by trees looking over the ocean. As such the house is the absolute opposite of the Gothic and spooky old building by the pond in Nathalie Granger. Here the house is barren with only some creaking black leather furniture, but its doorways are framing the shots as would the rooms have a life of their own that they, or the house as a whole, imposes on the characters. As they are "framed" by the music, they are also framed by the house.
Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 2 (1985), finds Duras' use of houses significant, he points out that her films "were marked by all the powers of the house, or of house and grounds together, fear and desire, talking and being quiet, going out and coming back, creating the event and burying it, etc. Marguerite Duras was a great filmmaker of the house, such an important theme in cinema, not simply because women 'inhabit' houses, in every sense, but because passions 'inhabit' women: as in Destroy she said, and especially Nathalie Granger and, later still, Vera Baxter." I take this to mean that like the way the two women in this film is framed by the house and its rooms, their passions are also dictated by the building, or inhabited as Deleuze says. As they move about the house, they also constantly talk about it, its environs and (especially) its high price. They might be the talking subjects but they are also the objects enclosed by the house. This interaction I find interesting but it is an interaction that you can see in many films, for example in Antonioni, and of course in countless horror movies. I guess we are made especially aware of it in Duras, however, because the dialogue itself seems to go nowhere, the talking goes around and around like an old dance record, or indeed like the music loop in the film. At least that is my first impression of the film, that the (modern) house and the (ancient?) music have as much importance as the dialogue. They do not seem to fit together, the house calls for a modern score but does not get it. The dialogue is caught in the gap. The result is (positive) friction.
So yes, I like it. I have, however, rated this film a point below Nathalie Granger, and not only because I am fed up with the music. The film did not have as strong effect on me as the more claustrophobic Nathalie Granger had this morning. It is more distant. But however much ellipsis or void there is in the films of Duras, I remain thankful that they are made at all. I feel at home in them. They deserve to be more seen, for they have a rare beauty that is all of their own.
Before the introductory titles are finished, we see, in bright colours, a high class, pale, semi nude woman lying down in four different poses. What we hear, however, is the sound of the sea. When the film "proper" begins, we see a modern house, and learn by an off screen voice that it is for rent. A scene in a tavern or hotel introduces a clerk that tells a female visitor that the house is rented out every summer to Vera Baxter, and also that something terrible happened there some time ago. There is a journalist present who has tried to get in touch with Vera Baxter without any success. The visitor repeats the name with great accuracy; "Baxter, Vera Baxter". And then the music begins. The music?
Yes, the music. During the remaining film there is a constant loop of some basic guitar chords and a high pitched flute that are intruding on both the characters and the viewers. It seems there is some party of strangers nearby, but no one ever sees it. The sound is never distant in a natural way, however, but very much on the soundtrack, and creates very much a stage of its own, an autonomous sound stage, so to speak. This is not unlike that of the sounds of the beggar in India Song, but my reaction to it is quite different: In India Song it gave the film an extra dimension that I found totally mesmerizing, but this flute soon got on my nerves, I must admit. And perhaps the effect is intended but the characters do not seem to mind, on the contrary, they, at least the life weary Vera Baxter, connect it with life and with living.
It seems to be some secrecy involved in the renting of the house. Jean Baxter has already rented it, but his wife Vera is not informed about this, and she is not certain that the price is right. First we see Vera taking to an old friend at the house, but she soon leaves. The visitor then mysteriously enters the house, meets with Vera, and the rest of the film takes place there, only interrupted by some fine exterior shots of the surrounding woods and the beach by the Atlantic. Much of the dialogue is obscure, as is expected in a Duras script, and I do not intend to offer any extensive analysis of it after a single viewing. Treason and infidelity abounds, as can be heard in a phone call from Jean. The visitor enquires about her marriage but also seems to play her part in the game,
The house also plays its important part. It is a fairly modernistic piece of architecture; vast windows from floor to ceiling revealing a landscape covered by trees looking over the ocean. As such the house is the absolute opposite of the Gothic and spooky old building by the pond in Nathalie Granger. Here the house is barren with only some creaking black leather furniture, but its doorways are framing the shots as would the rooms have a life of their own that they, or the house as a whole, imposes on the characters. As they are "framed" by the music, they are also framed by the house.
Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 2 (1985), finds Duras' use of houses significant, he points out that her films "were marked by all the powers of the house, or of house and grounds together, fear and desire, talking and being quiet, going out and coming back, creating the event and burying it, etc. Marguerite Duras was a great filmmaker of the house, such an important theme in cinema, not simply because women 'inhabit' houses, in every sense, but because passions 'inhabit' women: as in Destroy she said, and especially Nathalie Granger and, later still, Vera Baxter." I take this to mean that like the way the two women in this film is framed by the house and its rooms, their passions are also dictated by the building, or inhabited as Deleuze says. As they move about the house, they also constantly talk about it, its environs and (especially) its high price. They might be the talking subjects but they are also the objects enclosed by the house. This interaction I find interesting but it is an interaction that you can see in many films, for example in Antonioni, and of course in countless horror movies. I guess we are made especially aware of it in Duras, however, because the dialogue itself seems to go nowhere, the talking goes around and around like an old dance record, or indeed like the music loop in the film. At least that is my first impression of the film, that the (modern) house and the (ancient?) music have as much importance as the dialogue. They do not seem to fit together, the house calls for a modern score but does not get it. The dialogue is caught in the gap. The result is (positive) friction.
So yes, I like it. I have, however, rated this film a point below Nathalie Granger, and not only because I am fed up with the music. The film did not have as strong effect on me as the more claustrophobic Nathalie Granger had this morning. It is more distant. But however much ellipsis or void there is in the films of Duras, I remain thankful that they are made at all. I feel at home in them. They deserve to be more seen, for they have a rare beauty that is all of their own.