Duet for Cannibals(Duett för kannibaler)

An innocent young couple becomes entangled through employment in the predatorial power games and sexual exploits of a dysfunctional marriage between a famed German political exile and his nubile Italian wife. Invited to make her feature film debut in Sweden, Sontag took the opportunity in a post-’68 milieu to reflect in the form of a chamber drama on the generational and gendered power dynamics amongst the intelligentsia that she had herself navigated and enjoyed a privileged perspective to observe throughout the decade. Echoes of Bergman and Godard are perhaps unsurprising given Sontag’s admiration of both filmmakers, but the film is ultimately Sontag’s through and through: a darkly comic parable pitting the wide-eyed naïveté of Sixties youth against the cynicism and corruption of veterans from the Old World.

Cannes Directors' Fortnight

23/5(Sat): Film talk with Li Mei-ting