''This Angry Age'' (also known as ''The Sea Wall'', ''Barrage contre le Pacifique'' and ''La diga sul Pacifico'') is a 1957 Italian-American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by René Clément, produced by

Dino De Laurentiis Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian-American film producer. Along with Carlo Ponti, he was one of the producers who brought Italian cinema to the international scene at the end of World War II. He ...

, and starring

Anthony Perkins Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor, director, and singer. Perkins is best remembered for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller '' Psycho'', which made him an influentia ...

and

Silvana Mangano Silvana Mangano (; 21 April 1930 – 16 December 1989) was an Italian film actress. She was one of a generation of thespians who arose from the neorealist movement, and went on to become a major female star, regarded as a sex symbol for the 19 ...

. It is an adaptation of

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film '' Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) e ...

' 1950 novel, '' The Sea Wall''. The original novel was adapted again in 2008 by

Rithy Panh Rithy Panh ( km, ប៉ាន់ រិទ្ធី; born April 18, 1964) is a Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter. The French-schooled director's films focus on the aftermath of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambod ...

as '' The Sea Wall'', starring

Isabelle Huppert Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert (; born 16 March 1953) is a French actress. Described as "one of the best actresses in the world", she is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality. She is the recipient of sev ...

Plot

Twenty-year-old Joseph (Perkins) and his sixteen-year-old sister Suzanne (Mangano) live in the merciless conditions of an intemperate foreign land with their widowed mother (Van Fleet). Their mother attempts to exert a hold on her children by involving them in the family's run-down rice plantation. However the siblings seek liberation, and look for this in their romantic lives. Suzanne becomes involved with Michael (Conte) and Joseph finds a love interest in Claude (Valli).

Cast

as Joseph Dufresne *

as Suzanne Dufresne *

Richard Conte Nicholas Peter Conte (March 24, 1910 – April 15, 1975), known professionally as Richard Conte, was an American actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from the 1940s through 1970s, including '' I'll Cry Tomorrow'', ''Ocean's 11'', and ''Th ...

as Michael *

Jo Van Fleet Catherine Josephine Van Fleet (December 29, 1915"The Bi ...

as Mme. Dufresne *

Alida Valli Alida Maria Laura, '' Freiin'' Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage name Alida Valli (or simply Valli), was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, ...

as Claude *

Nehemiah Persoff Nehemiah Persoff (August 2, 1919 – April 5, 2022) was an American character actor and painter. He appeared in more than 200 television series, films, and theatre productions and also performed as a voice artist in a career spanning 55 years, be ...

as Albert *

Yvonne Sanson Yvonne Sanson ( el, Υβόν Σανσόν; 29 August 1925 – 23 July 2003) was a Greek-Italian film actress. She appeared in 46 films between 1946 and 1972, mainly working in Italy. Born in Thessaloniki, Sanson was a naturalised Italian cit ...

as Carmen *

Guido Celano Guido Celano (19 April 1904 – 7 March 1988) was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He appeared in 120 films between 1931 and 1988. He also directed two Spaghetti Westerns: '' Cold Killer'' and '' Gun Shy Piluk''. He was born ...

as Bart

Production

Clément purchased the film rights to the Duras novel in 1956. The original male lead was supposed to have been James Dean, but he was replaced by Perkins. Mangano, the wife of the film's producer, was cast in the female lead. Clément shot the film in wide-screen Technirama and Technicolor. He was unable to film in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

, the setting of the original novel, as it no longer existed. Nor could he film in the newly independent

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, as nationalist struggles continued there. Thus, Clément reconstructed the story's setting in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Reception

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' described Clément as "a specialist in that sort of tragedy that evolves from the inability of deeply pained people to face their own feelings." The reviewer also praised the "great pictorial beauty and admirable psychological truth" of Clément's film. The reviewer also praised how the "crumbling of the dam against the assaults of the river stands as an image of what is going on within the family."This Angry Age
The New York Times. 26 June 1958 The film was also a critical success in France, being lauded as "a complete success, a chef-d'œuvre", although François Truffaut did not share this enthusiasm, accusing Clément of directing "his career". He added that "For Clément, the essential thing is that the film he is making costs more than the last one and less than the next." Duras was dismayed by the absence of certain colonial themes that were important in her novel. She said she felt "betrayed" and "dishonoured" by the film.

References

External links