The Immortal One

Alain Robbe-Grillet's directorial debut, The Immortal One, is the film in his body of work that is closest to the experimental poetics of the nouveau roman. It can even be considered a subversive self-adaptation of the novel Jealousy. The titular motif from the novel is repeatedly utilized in the film's visual layer – the act of looking through window blinds creates a disturbing atmosphere of voyeurism (also understood as a sexual practice) and shapes the relationships between the characters based on fascination, desire, the longing for domination and possession. At the same time, the blinds also allude to obsessive jealousy (French: jalousie) and, in line with the narrative strategies of the new novel, question the objectivity, chronology, and logic of the events depicted in the film. A man (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) arrives in Istanbul, and in this beautiful yet unfamiliar and incomprehensible world, he encounters – or merely desires to encounter – a woman (Françoise Brion) who is equally mysterious, elusive, and dangerous, just like the setting in which their romance unfolds, marked by the fear of loss and the inevitability of death.