Mélanie has a delicate and enigmatic image, a kind of presence that is impossible not to notice, as under her reflexive appearance hides a strong voice that intrigues us for what she is about to say. She is one of the most successful actresses in France, where she’s worked in cinema and theatre since her first dramatic role in The Legend of 1900, by Giuseppe Tornatore, which marked the beginning of her career in the film industry. In 2010, she received the César Award for Most Promising Actress thanks to her role as Magali in Le dernier pour la route, by Philippe Godeau. Some fashion insiders and Belle d’Opium lovers might also remember her as the face of the Yves Saint Laurent’s perfume campaign in 2010 or on the cover of several issues of Vogue Italia shot by Lindbergh – although her link to the fashion world is now a thing of the past, as her filmography becomes more and more extensive and award-winning.

Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel, the story begins when the French writer finds two old diaries in a forgotten box, triggering memories that take us back to the Second World War: as part of the French resistance, Duras painfully suffered while waiting for her husband’s return from the Nazis, who captured him as a war prisoner. “This is the story of an agonising wait, long and silent. The search, the absence, the separation”, explains Mélanie.

Those who have read Duras know about her particular taste for the different, the unknown and the secrecy. A descriptive style that is suggestive as well as provocative. Besides her affiliation with the communist party during the Nazi occupation in Paris, Marguerite Duras was in touch with the existentialism of Sartre and Beauvoir, a school of thought she’d finally abandon to get closer to the nouveau roman. When you go through her iconic novels, like The Lover or The Sailor of Gibraltar, you see such themes were quite a constant in her narrative style: “Duras was a complex and brilliant woman. What I like the most about her is her strength, her rhythm, and her particular way of writing, where repetition takes you to the limit, creating a sense of vertigo, an alteration, an obsession that takes you into the depths of emotions”, says the actress.

The director of the film, Emmanuel Finkiel, was the former assistant of directors Bertrand Tavernier, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Jean-Luc Godard before his debut with Voyages. In 2008, he was honoured with the Jean Vigo award for his film Nulle part, terre promise. His casting for the adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ novel includes Mélanie in the leading female role along with Benoît Magimel, Benjamin Biolay and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet.

In this film adaptation, the perspective of Finkiel is different to other films about the post-war era, which usually focus on the soldiers’ anxiety or depression but don’t even consider the point of view of women. Mélanie explains how the director remains faithful to Dura’s personal voice, translating her memories of suffering into images through silences and languid atmospheres, but also proposing a different approach as the pain didn’t end when the war was over. Instead, it is kept alive afterwards in the hearts and minds of the families and their lost loved ones.