Baxter, Vera Baxter
Marguerite Duras / FR, 1977 / 95 min.
Using minimal, yet highly effective, means Marguerite Duras paints a portrait of married but lonely Vera Baxter (Claudine Gabay). The archetypal bourgeois woman, she is caught in the golden cage of marriage, her life marred by existential emptiness. Chosen by Albert Serra.
A woman (Claudine Gabay) is staying in a chic villa, wandering through its rooms. She must be Vera Baxter, the woman people were talking about in a bar. In the evening, Vera is visited by a woman known as ‘L’inconnue’ (Delphine Seyrig). She listens to Vera’s life story; a story told partly by Vera herself and partly in voice-over (by Duras).
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Marguerite Duras
Production year
1977
Country
FR
Original title
Baxter, Vera Baxter
Length
95 min.
Language
French
Subtitles
ENG
Format
DCP
Part of
Albert Serra
Eye Filmmuseum presents the first exhibition in the Netherlands about the work of Catalan film and theatre director Albert Serra. Transforming the entire exhibition space into an immersive stage, Serra orchestrates nocturnal and clandestine encounters where theatre, cinema, and art converge.
Why in Eye
As in India Song, in Baxter, Vera Baxter Duras makes intriguing stylistic choices. A panpipe band play the same tune virtually through the entire film; this alienating effect lends the snatches of conversation a surreal, almost ominous undertone, highly appropriate to a film about the darker sides of marital fidelity.
Thijs Havens
Programmer Eye Filmmuseum
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