Sensorial Memories of the Colonial Space in the Films of Marguerite Duras

This article argues that Marguerite Duras’ films evoke memories of the colonised Orient through fragments of sonic, haptic and olfactic events, which happen, seemingly randomly, in the liminal spaces of Duras’ filmic representation of place. In these interstitial gaps, the possibility of cultural hybridity is opened while the assumed or imposed hierarchy between the colonised and coloniser’s space is deconstructed. Through a detailed analysis of Duras’ films, this article unearthes the fragments of these buried sensorial memories of intercultural contact in the colonial space.