Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)

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1. 

   xianjiro

   Boring,
   Very Boring
   
   Clearly fails the Bechdel Test famously. While yes, living in extreme poverty or suffering from any form of enslavement would be worse, the fact that Vera Baxter is so unwilling to do anything with her life reveals an intense poverty of spirit. Such a poverty that it's almost impossible to believe. Even the poor imagine rich women bossing around the servants or stuffing their faces.
   
   And then there is the endless Andean folk music in constant loop. Ugh. 1 year 1 month ago
2. 

   MMDan

   

   zzz

   2 months 4 weeks ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   From the first shot of Baxter, Vera Baxter (which is on the poster), Marguerite Duras is painting with her camera. I don't know if she's referencing actual paintings (that first one, certainly) or just evoking portrait, still life and landscape generally, but this IS a portrait. The portrait of a woman, but as the title subtly hints, her disintegrating marriage in particular. Duras isolates characters in their own frames, very seldom going to two-shots, and often letting conversations play out on shots empty of people. Vera is melancholy, not even finding joy in her current affair, which she describes severally to different people. She calls herself a liar, but Delphine Seyrig's helpful stranger later brings us a possible key - that this isn't necessarily about Vera, but about all women who have felt abandoned by men throughout history, and perhaps have had affairs not out of lust, as men have, but out of loneliness. The subject matter is heavily contrasted by some kind of Peruvian party music piping in from no place in particular, celebrating Vera's emancipation even as she laments it. An incredibly interesting picture that might serve as companion to Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (which probably comes to mind because of Seyrig's participation). 1 year 6 months ago

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