83. L'Atalante (1934)

Directed By Jean Vigo

Synopsis

Village girl gets married to barge man. Barge man is jealous and in a fit of jelousy leaves village girl in Paris, sailing off in his barge. Man goes desperate and eventually lovers get reunited.

Review

Ok, this is a much hyped film, and was recently voted the 6th best film of all time. I can see why this happened, this does not mean that I loved it all that much, however. Yes, it is a lovely film, and a lovely fairytale. The direction is faultless, Vigo's eye is above any reproach, as is the superb editing. But there is something missing here, it might be depth to the characters, all flimsy compared to Michel Simon's character Pere Jules.

Pere Jules is a bit of a rehash of Boudu from Renoir's film, but he still steals the show, as a slightly demented old sailor who is actually the most empathetic character in the whole film. As I said before, the editing is superb, when the lovers get separated there is a stupendous scene where each lies in bed longing for each other in a series of inter-twining cuts, which is at the same time pitiful, sexy and makes the whole point that the film sets out to make.

It is ultimately a fairy tale, about a lover's incompleteness without his or her other half. Ultimately , Pere Jules is the only complete character because he goes beyond gender, as he says when pointing at a naked picture of a young lady: "That is me when I was little". Pere Jules has his cats, his music and his imagination and dispenses a mate. The two common mortals in the film are, however less than full characters, and maybe this is on purpose, because they are not full without each other. In the end I liked it, and as I am writing this review I am thinking more about the film and it's meaning is kind of unravelling itself to me.

There is a kind of surrealist hazyness sorrounding the film, which helps put it in a type of fairyland. When the married lovers walk from the church to the boat they seems to go through all kinds of landscapes and they have literally left the rest of the people in the cortege behind them, a long way away. It is a story of co-dependence but one which ends nicely.

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Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The original distributors cut the film's running time in an attempt to make it more popular and changed the title to Le Chaland Qui Passe, the name of a song from the time, which was also inserted into the film.

L'Atalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll.

The much lauded cinematography was by Boris Kaufman. He would later go on to shoot great Hollywood films such as On the Waterfront. Nevertheless, he described his years working with Vigo as "cinematic paradise."

Sequence where girl is left by husband: