Duet for Cannibals

Essayist, novelist, critic, cinephile, and all-around intellectual dynamo Susan Sontag made her directorial debut with this definition-defying, dryly funny psychological serio-comedy, a project that began when a Swedish studio invited her to make a film in Stockholm. The result, revolving around the quadrangular relationship between an arrogant ex-revolutionist German intellectual exile, his elegant wife, their Swedish student secretary, and the earnest secretary’s bride-to-be, is a roundelay of partner-swapping that gradually drifts into gamesmanship that broaches the surreal and violent. Defying literal-minded interpretation, DUET FOR CANNIBALS is both an illustrative companion to Sontag’s criticism and an introduction to a startlingly original filmmaker.