“Among its many notable achievements, Memoir of War is one of the best films I’ve seen about the ways in which grief can pull a person in both directions simultaneously. Whereas the film’s first half plays more like a thriller, the second half proves to be an emotionally wrenching interlude perched on pins and needles.” (RogerEbert.com)

Acclaimed French Jewish director Emmanuel Finkeil (Voyages) has created a superb and haunting narrative film based on The War: A Memoir, seminal writer Marguerite Duras’s emotionally complex semiautobiographical story of love, agony, and survival during and just after WWII. An active member of the Resistance, Duras (Mélanie Thierry) frantically searches for news of her husband, who was taken by the Gestapo as the Allies closed in on Nazi-occupied Paris. As time goes by, she’s forced to play a game of cat and mouse with a high-ranking French collaborator in hopes of obtaining some information. Using subtly expressionistic imagery and voiceovers of Duras’s writing, Finkiel evokes the inner world of one of the 20th century’s most revolutionary writers.