The Malady of Death (Das Mal des Todes) 39 years old

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?"

Credits

The Malady of Death Cast

Name	Character
Peter Handke He was 42, now 82 years old
Marie Colbin She was 27, now 67 years old

The Malady of Death Crew

Name	Department
Marie Homolkova as Editor.	Editing
Marguerite Duras as Novel. She was 70 (81) years old when She died	Writing