“She remembers. She still hears the sound of the sea in the room. And she remembers having written that. As she remembers the Chinese street.

The lovers are finished. Maybe they sleep. Through the shutters, light falls in patterns on the bed.”
– M

You never forget your first lover. The affair plays like a moving picture over and over in your mind: passionate, consuming, secret, taboo.

Fade in: the seamy French Quarter of Southern Indochina in the 1930s where an impoverished schoolgirl who will someday be French novelist Marguerite Duras is about to meet and captivate a wealthy 27-year-old Chinese aristocrat.

With the older Duras as our guide, The North China Lover transports us on a provocative and haunting journey of awakening and sacrifice, revealing the delicate and indelible effect of life on art.