Within the insular walls of a lavish, decaying embassy in 1930's India, the French ambassador's wife staves off ennui through affairs with multiple men- with the overpowering torpor broken only by a startling eruption of madness. Setting her evocatively decadent visuals to a desynchronized chorus of disembodied voices that comment on and counterpoint the action, Duras creates a haunted-house movie unlike any other.