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Aurélia Steiner (Melbourne)
Paris, France. A boat glides slowly past the banks of the Seine. From the bow of the vessel, we see industrial sites. Cars drive along the quays and across many bridges: Pont d’Austerlitz, Pont National, Pont Neuf, Pont Alexandre III. Curious silhouettes watch the river from their pavements. On the voice track, Aurélia Steiner addresses a letter to a traceless love(r). “Où êtes-vous?”, she asks politely. The hum of the engine carries her silences. Beyond that, there is little else. Melbourne is miles away.
In this fictional epistolary film, writer Marguerite Duras, a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War and partner to a Holocaust survivor, uses her titular alter ego to voice a deeply personal grief. Through geographical dislocation, she creates a poetic distance in order to speak about historical trauma and exile. Although her literary observations often cover very mundane subjects (her scrawny cat, wilting roses), her interplay of words and images here suggests that the reasons for her broken heart are much more profound.
Bio Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and filmmaker. One of the most influential intellectual figures of her generation, she is the author of classic works, such as the films Hiroshoma mon amour (1959) and India Song (1975), and the novel L'Amant (The Lover, 1984), which was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt.