The Long Absence
(Une aussi longue absence)
Screening on Film
Directed by Henri Colpi.
With Alida Valli, Georges Wilson, Jacques Harden.
France/Italy, 1960, 16mm, black & white, 96 min.
French with English subtitles.
With Alida Valli, Georges Wilson, Jacques Harden.
France/Italy, 1960, 16mm, black & white, 96 min.
French with English subtitles.
Winner of the Grand Prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, The Long Absence, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras and Gérard Jarlot, is the seldom-seen first feature by masterful film editor Henri Colpi, responsible for the editing of such classic films as The Picasso Mystery, Hiroshima mon amour, and Last Year at Marienbad. Set in a village on the outskirts of Paris, it is the story of a café owner who meets an amnesiac tramp and becomes convinced that he is her missing husband, who disappeared fifteen years earlier in a prison camp. Poetic, poignant, and beautifully underplayed, Colpi’s simple story is a powerful exploration of the themes of memory and identity.
