From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: MOVIE: The Lover
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 15:21:38 GMT


11/18

FRENCH FILMMAKER ANNAUD EVOKES A WRITER'S FIRST LOVE

    By Karen Goldfarb
    NEW YORK, Nov 19, Reuter - French director Jean-Jacques Annaud says he made
his film "The Lover," based on the acclaimed novel by Marguerite Duras, as a 
way of talking about love and sexuality with his daughters.
   "I'm a man who has been transformed by a woman -- I owe a great debt to
women, and I wanted to express my gratitude," the 49-year-old filmmaker told
Reuters in a recent interview.
    "The Lover" is set in 1929 in Saigon, where Duras spent an impoverished
childhood with her mother and two brothers and tells the story of a passionate
love affair she had when she was 15 with a wealthy, older Chinese man. The film
stars Tony Leung and Jane March, and is narrated by Jeanne Moreau, whose husky,
evocative voice stands in as the older Duras.
    "There were so many resonances," Annaud said of the novel, which has been
translated into 43 languages and won the Prix Goncourt -- the prestigious 
French literary prize -- in 1984.
    Annaud, who speaks perfect English, said he had been working on a different
screenplay when producer Claude Berri approached him about "The Lover."
    "I was already writing the story of a young girl and her first love affair
precisely because I have two daughters -- 17- and 20-year-old daughters. I had
tried to talk to them about sex but everyone ended up giggling," Annaud said.
    He said what he loved about the Duras book was that it was about a young
girl's awakening to love and sex.
   "I realised that what was so beautiful was that the story was seen from a
woman's point of view that I adored. I was upset with myself, because I 
directed movies from the male point of view, and I felt it was time to use the 
feminine.
    "And the fact that it was written by a remarkable woman and that it's an
autobiography adds to the harshness as well as a lot of truth in what she 
agrees to say."
    It is the first foreign film to be made in Vietnam.
    Annaud, who won an Oscar in 1977 for "Black and White in Color," said
everyone called him a crazy filmmaker when he decided to make "The Lover" in
Vietnam, but he did it anyway.
   "Nothing had the same atmosphere, the same humidity, the same poetic power 
as Vietnam itself," he recalled.
    "And I also know that story, that very passionate, carnal story -- that
story of flesh and perspiration could not exist anywhere else -- not only for
cultural reasons, but for climate reasons.
    "Vietnam is a place of fragrances -- of smells, of mud, of dust, of 
feelings and perceptions. It's part of the root of the story."
    He said he filled the screen with images of water -- of torrential rains, 
of marshes and the mud of the Mekong Delta because he sees these kinds of 
images as central to the work of Duras.
    "Marguerite Duras' work could be described as blue for the colour and water
for the texture," Annaud said. "I could not understand that until I discovered
Vietnam because that part of Vietnam is full of water -- even the sky if full 
of water."
    In a way, he said, "my film is about the primacy of the body.
    "You can't deny the body. I am so sad to see that most people don't want to
understand that they have a body -- that they should respect and honour the
body.
    "What I hope is that people can read philosophy, and also understand that
they have a body that reacts, that has impulses and necessities and they should
not be guilty about this."
    Duras, now 78, recently wrote another memoir, "The North Chinese Lover,"
which she says tells the real story of that time, one that "The Lover" only
alluded to.
    She has said various things about the movie -- that she loved it, that she
hated it, that she wished her name were bigger on the screen and that her real
lover was much better-looking than Tony Leung.
    But Annaud said he understands her feelings about the movie and that 
rumours of a rift are all highly exaggerated.
    "After all, it is her soul up there -- her story. People forget that Duras
likes to be provocative, that she became famous because she can write -- 'I 
love you, I hate you'," he said.
    "The truth is, very often we kissed each other."

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