Agatha et les lectures illimitées (Agatha and the Limitless Readings). 1981. France. Written and directed by Marguerite Duras. With Bulle Ogier, Yann Andréa. 35mm courtesy Villa Albertine and the l'Institut français. In French; English subtitles. 90 min.
Marguerite Duras called Agatha “the first film I’ve written about happiness.” A brother and sister, as “frighteningly stiff” and eternal as ancient Olmec statues, gaze beyond each other toward the deserted beach and the incessant sea. In an uninhabited villa of bare walls bathed in a cold, silent winter light, they find themselves lost in memories of a “marvelous” summer in their youth, suspended over the abyss of an incestuous love: blissful, violent, impossible. Duras, whose voice we hear off camera with her then-partner Yann Andréa, filmed Agathe in an abandoned seaside hotel in Trouville-sur-Mer, Les Roches Noires (“The Black Rocks”), a Belle Époque retreat for Claude Monet, Gustave Flaubert, and Marcel Proust. In 1963 Duras had purchased an apartment adjoining what was once the suite where Proust would regularly stay with his grandmother. There, for the rest of her days, Duras would spend summers awash in her own memories of lost time.