Suzanna Andler

Benoit Jacquot’s early film A SINGLE GIRL (1995) was a veritable feat of tight camerawork and fluid motion. Rendered with uncanny psychological acuity, the vertigo of a young woman’s tiniest missteps and doubts could be felt in its pacing. Now Jacquot does it again with his latest feature SUZANNA ANDLER, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Marguerite Duras.
Jacquot creates an emotional echo chamber with another female protagonist, Suzanna, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, trapped inside. She must make an agonizing decision, torn between the prospect of a vacation at a posh beach resort with her young lover, or her abiding, wounded love for her unfaithful, magnate-wealthy husband of many years.
Gainsbourg brings a teetering, whispery disquiet to her role, as a woman whose whole being is tied up in pauses and lingering silences, as if she’s known all along that she’s embarked on an impossible quest – a woman who doesn’t trust her instincts yet fears being alone, a feeling amplified by the slow but sure vertigo of Christophe Beaucarne’s cinematography. Duras’ truncated rhythms and cutting voice reverberate unmistakably in the bare setting, in which there is no distraction but the hell of passion and the fleeting consolation of having loved. (Ela Bittencourt)

Benoît Jacquot: L’ASSASSIN MUSICIEN (1975), CORPS ET BIENS (1986), LES MENDIANTS (1987), LA FILLE SEULE (1995), LE SEPTIÈME CIEL (1997), THE SCHOOL OF FLESH (1998), PAS DE SCANDALE (1999), LA FAUSSE SUIVANTE (2000), SADE (2000), TOSCA (2001), ADOLPHE (2002), À TOUT DE SUITE (2004), L’INTOUCHABLE (2006), VILLA AMALIA (2009), AU FOND DES BOIS (2010), FAREWELL MY QUEEN (2012), 3 HEARTS (2014), DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (2015), À JAMAIS (2016), EVA (2018), DERNIER AMOUR (2019)