Although it might not belong in the 'neglected masterpiece' category this tender, poignant and beautifully understated film deserves to be far better known.
Henri Colpi and Yasmine Chesnay had together contributed superlative editing to 'Hiroshima, mon amour' and 'Last year at Marienbad'. This is Colpi's directorial debut and Chesnay is credited with montage.
The tempo is 'lento' throughout and severely tests the attention span of the average viewer. It gradually draws you in however and is ultimately richly rewarding.
Therese feels sure that she recognises in the tramp who passes her bistro every day the husband that was arrested by the Gestapo and deported fifteen years earlier. He is suffering from amnesia and she sets about helping him to restore his memory. Even when he suddenly departs she does not give up hope and says "I will wait until Winter."
The two central performances of Alida Valli and Georges Wilson are simply stunning and the last thirty minutes or so represent film making at its best.
The scenes that stand out are those in which she uses the amnesiac's love of Rossini's operas to try and unlock his mind and that in which she discovers the deep scar on his skull as they dance to the delightful 'trois petites notes de musique' of Georges Delerue.
Both the director and writer Marguerite Duras have succeeded admirably in depicting the strength and constancy of a woman's love but also, in Colpi's own words, "the fundamental impossibility of two human beings to communicate."
