Daniel Dobbels

Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of a French diplomat in 1930s India, takes many lovers to relieve the boredom in her life.

1952, The Radiant City of Marseille receives its first occupants, eighty civil servants and compensated from war, coming from the four corners of France. Some are led by the promise of Le Corbusier’s ideals. Upon arrival, a couple experiments the location, facilities, and space allotted to them. They each respond to the new habitat. Its uniqueness, its details. The body questions the utopia. New Eden born under the reconstruction, the radiant city floats on the after-war as nothing happened. On board, settled cold, loneliness and sterility.

The full soundtrack to Marguerite Duras' 1975 film India Song, about a French ambassador's wife in 1930s India, is here repurposed with all new cinematography. As we hear all the dialogue of a bygone movie, we travel visually through images of absence and decay, bereft of life. It's the ghost of a film, and a further commentary on colonialism.