Site Revisions Underway Some Features May Not Work
Poster for The Malady of Death

The Malady of Death (1985)

★ 0.0/10 65 min Drama Austria German
Director: Peter Handke
Screenplay by: Peter Handke
Novel: Marguerite Duras
Streaming: Not available

Description

In the space of a short 65 minutes, a woman enters the luxury apartment of a wealthy man with an eccentric fascination for the female form and is paid both for her sexual favors and for lying there naked and letting him examine the aesthetics of her body. For most of the hour, as the concise narration of Marguerite Duras' novel on eroticism and aesthetics fills the aural gaps, actress Marie Colbin's form fills the visual gaps. But unless viewers consider the feminine eyeball or microscopic views of skin exotic and worth lingering over, the eroticism lies more in the imagination than on the screen. In fact, the female body lying on the bed, taken away from the spirit that animates it, is really just a corpse -- raising the question, exactly what is the "malady of death?"

Top Cast

Marie Colbin
Marie Colbin The Anonymous Woman
Peter Handke The Narrator (voice)

Powered by

TMDB
× Movie poster
Back to Film Diary Index