The most insidious thing about the nouveau movie, which is a polite way of describing Marguerite Duras's newest, most minimal film, "Nathalie Granger," is that it traps you in its own time, unlike the nouveau roman, which can be skipped through or read at leisure in an afternoon or a year.

You can't skip through "Nathalie Granger." To see it you are forced to watch it for as long as it lasts, while, in turn, it watches its characters, rather as if the camera were a Siamese cat whose feelings had been hurt.

Without betraying the slightest interest, the camera records the physical appearance of two expressionless women [Isabelle and The Other Woman]….

The camera paces through the house, looking into mirrors, down hallways, through windows. There is a report on the radio about a murder and a police manhunt. The telephone rings. Wrong number. "There is no...