Format: Video from The Magic Flashdrive on laptop.
Up to tonight, I’d seen exactly three films featuring Delphine Seyrig. I’ve absolutely hated two of them (Last Year at Marienbad, Jeanne Dielmann) and really enjoyed one (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). It would appear, then, that a fourth film will tell the tale. Either Seyrig will come out close to even (although I really hate those two films) or will get her third strike. The film in question this time is India Song, which, despite its name, is French and was filmed in Paris.
Yeah. We’re not getting out of this one unscathed. Part of that is due to either the unfortunate state of the print or something else, but a large part of it is that this film moves at the pace of a basalt slab. Its one effective speed is “stop.” I didn’t think it was possible for a film to be more motionless than either Marienbad or Jeanne Dielmann, and yet here we are, watching a film for which all of the voices were recorded before the film was made and we spend minutes at a time watching three people lay unmoving on a floor. Were it not for the evidence available in Discreet Charm, I’d be half convinced that Delphine Seyrig was actually a mannequin.
