Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977) review

Another beguiling voyage inside the mind of writer/filmmaker Duras (who is one of my favorite novelists) involves journalist Michel Cayre (Gérard Depardieu) mentioning his infatuation with married Vera Baxter (Claudine Gabay), and then it unexpectedly shifts to Vera herself discussing her disappointing marriage to Jean (not shown on screen) with Monique (Noëlle Châtelet) and a mysterious unnamed female (Delphine Seyrig).  Duras' typical themes of alienation, despair and the fragility of memory are, as usual, on display here, except it mostly consists of individuals sitting around and voicing their fragmented thoughts, and sometimes she has her camera scanning vacant rooms or watching the trees sway and the ocean ripple - the end result is either a hypnotic experience about the constraints of being a woman or an extreme test of patience (or perhaps a little of both).  For those who dare to watch it, I certainly hope you like Andean music, because the siku, quena and charango are played on a nonstop loop.