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The Malady of Death

0% | Mar 26, 1985
Drama

In the space of a short 65 minutes, a woman enters the luxury apartment of a wealthy man with an eccentric fascination for the female form and is paid both for her sexual favors and for lying there naked and letting him examine the aesthetics of her body. For most of the hour, as the concise narration of Marguerite Duras' novel on eroticism and aesthetics fills the aural gaps, actress Marie Colbin's form fills the visual gaps. But unless viewers consider the feminine eyeball or microscopic views of skin exotic and worth lingering over, the eroticism lies more in the imagination than on the screen. In fact, the female body lying on the bed, taken away from the spirit that animates it, is really just a corpse -- raising the question, exactly what is the "malady of death?"

Top Billed Cast

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Marie Colbin
the anonymous woman
actor1
Peter Handke
the narrator

Featured Crew

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Peter Handke
Director
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Peter Handke
Screenplay
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Marie Homolkova
Editor
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Marguerite Duras
Novel
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Xaver Schwarzenberger
Director of Photography
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Sambuca Nigra
Original Music Composer
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Kurt Rosner
Set Designer
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Andrea Jaufer
Art Direction
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Folkert Prestin
Sound

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