Moderato Cantabile (1960)

In a working class seaside town, the bored bourgeois wife (Jeanne Moreau, whose performance here won her the best actress prize at the Cannes film festival) of the town's factory owner (Jean Deschamps) takes her child (Didier Haudepin) to his daily piano lesson (which provide the film's title). One day, a woman is murdered by her lover in a local cafe and she becomes obsessed with the killing and finds herself attracted to a witness (Jean Paul Belmondo) to the murder. Based on the best selling novel by Marguerite Duras (HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR) (who co-wrote the screenplay), the film is a detailed look in the week of the life of a "woman under the influence" to borrow from Mr. Cassavetes. I couldn't help but be reminded of Antonioni's RED DESERT, the similarities between Moreau's and Monica Vitti's discontented characters and situations are too analogous not to. This is a cerebral rather than tactile film which may frustrate the casual viewer but there's a near mesmeric quality that compensates for the lack of fire. The stunning B&W CinemaScope images are courtesy of Armand Thirard (DIABOLIQUE). Directed by the theater director Peter Brook (MARAT/SADE).