Seven Days... Seven Nights aka Moderato Cantabile (DVD)

Screen legends Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim, The Train) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Le Doulos, Le Magnifique) star in this mesmerizing drama from the brilliant mind of Marguerite Duras (Hiroshima Mon Amour, India Song). Moreau, who won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, is Anne Desbarèdes, a wealthy, bored housewife who believes she has witnessed a murder in a quayside bistro. Rushing to the scene of the crime, she strikes up a conversation with Chauvin (Belmondo), an employee of her husband who also saw the crime. The troubled woman continues to return to the café, increasingly identifying herself with the murder victim and becoming obsessed with Chauvin. Director Peter Brook (Lord of the Flies, Marat/Sade) and cinematographer Armand Thirard (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique) create repetitive patterns of sound and image that reflect Anne’s frustration with the “moderato cantabile” nature of her life and the absence of true passion that draws her inexorably to the café and Chauvin.