Billie and Louis have the good fortune of loving each other passionately and of having a family. But then one day terrible news turns their existence and that of their friends' upside down. Marie, a famous actress who is Billie's friend and confidant, redoubles her determination to give life, while Alice, her nurse, fighting for freedom, maintains that life 'is here and now and in the moment.' A film about love, hope, and the conviction that the force of life, despite the toughest tests, will always gain the upper hand.
On the night of New Year's Eve, a small group penetrates into the room of an old hotel in ruins. Carmine, the oldest of the group, poses a challenge to one of the men, Furio: he has 4 months to restore the hotel and inaugurate it with great pomp. Aware of the difficulties but anxious to prove the point, Furio accepts encouraged by his wife Margo who believes that this assignment will allow the couple to rediscover the lost momentum.
A girl, whose father is from Greece, studies ancient art in France. The film was made for television but never broadcast for political reasons related to its portrayal of Greeks. A work print was screened in Belgium in 1971, and the film is now available in reconstructed form.
In response to a new friend's queries, Vera recounts the story of her life, beginning with marrying her no-good husband Cayre, who has been using her for some time as a kind of unpaid prostitute in order to keep his failing building business afloat.
With little or no embellishment, filmmaker Marguerite Duras offers a simple, often wordless chronicle of a woman's day. She and her friend are seen doing yard work, talking about their families and receiving the occasional visitor. The brightest spot in the day is when a washing machine salesman comes to call.
A man returns to the place he once lived a passionate love affair with a woman who is now dead. So powerful are the emotions that seize him that he imagines she is still alive, and begins to live as if this were the case...
A lonely 60-year-old man lives in a small apartment on the top floor of a tower. Every day, a young woman entrusts her baby to him. A natural and unusual bond unites these two beings, one solid and sturdy, the other small and delicate.
Frank-Étienne is a door-to-door salesman on a mission to sell empty boxes in the middle of nowhere. Things go awry when he meets a young woman who is determined to take advantage of his kindness and his car. Unable to resist her, Frank-Étienne finds himself in an increasingly absurd situation with the woman, her lover, and his dog.
In this most talky and personal of films, director Marguerite Duras and actor Gerard Depardieu do an on-camera read-through of a movie script. Occasionally, the director comments about the characters or their motivations, and sometimes the actor does. That's all -- there is no action, there are no location shots, no one pretends to be anything else. The script itself tells about an encounter between a blank-slate of a woman hitchhiker, and a communist truck driver. As the reading progresses, Duras comments bitterly about the failed ideals of communism and the glorious revolution that will probably never happen.
"Her Mother, the Whore" - After Coralie was found dead in a vacant lot, her mother Catherine - who thinks that her daughter was murdered - conducts her own investigation.