L'ATALANTE (director: Jean Vigo; cast: Michel Simon (Jules), Jean Daste (Jean), Dita Parlo (Juliette), Louis Lefebvre (cabin boy), Gilles Margaritas (peddler), 1934-France)
Jean Vigo, whose father was an anarchist, as is he, sadly had a promising artistic future cut short because of his sudden death from a tubercular condition in 1934. He was just twenty-nine years- old and had made two brilliant feature films, ZERO CONDUCT and this film.
L'Atalante is, perhaps, considered by some, a dated film as far as its style goes. But with that being said, there is no denying that it is still powerful viewing because of its magically developed poetical gestures to the subject of love and the refreshingly lyrical way it looks out at its surrounding seascape towns and at the human condition. Its romantic story is much like Murnau's SUNRISE (1927), of innocents from the country getting corrupted by the big lure of the city, and then finding their true roots again. In this case, the peasant village girl (Juliette), is amiably played by the notable German silent screen starlet, Dita Parlo. She marries someone not from the area, the skipper of a motorized barge, Jean (Daste). His route passes her hometown.
The newlyweds adjust to marriage on the barge, with the eccentric mate, Jules (Simon), and the moronic cabin boy (Lefebvre) aboard. Jules' presence gives the film a certain strength, whether in revitalizing Juliette's spirits, which are encapsulated by her surprised reaction that she has met someone as knowing as him. She comes to this conclusion when she visits his room, where she sees that all the junk he has collected over his years from travelling across the sea and the plethora of cats he keeps, are extensions of his worldly personality. He becomes for her someone she can lean on for common sense guidance. By the force of his humanity and his paternalistic interest in the couple, he can bring to Juliette a sense of relief from this seemingly forlorn journey she is on. He is the heart and soul of this film; the richness of his character gives her a confidence in living. His later role will be that of savior, bringing her back to the captain after her disappearance.
The ordinary couple are playing out their vexing emotions without letting on how much these emotions mean to them, until it is almost too late. Because their emotions and passions are so dominating, the quality of the film engulfs everyone aboard the barge in an unreal state. The Seine looks so much like a dreamworld, where those on it are just drifting. Where romantic visions fade in and out, and hopes arise and perish on a whim.
The peasant girl, away from home for the first time, is bored by the same monotonous grind aboard the barge. She anxiously tells her husband that she wants to see the bright lights of Paris. On the night she has her heart set on going to Paris, as the barge is docked there, the roguish Jules decides to leave the boat and go to a palm reader to have his future told, forcing them to stay home and watch the barge. When the couple do go out in Paris, the husband is outraged at a peddler who tries to win his wife away from him at a dance hall, and he abruptly cuts that excursion short. Juliette still determined to see Paris, sneaks off ship; but the jealous captain, in a rage, takes off for the next town leaving her stranded. They both find that in their despair over their separation, that they do miss each other. When they are reunited, she will have seen enough of the world to know what it means to be on her own in the hostile world. The city will symbolize corruption and temptation for both of them, while life on the sea will come to mean honest work and innocence.
Because the story is such a simple one and the couple in so ordinary, it is not the story in itself that is exhilerating, as much as the way the film moves us to look at our own lives, with all its possibilities and disappointments. It makes us see things in a way that is disarmingly enchanting. That despite the moroseness and daily grind of regular life, there is also a poetical and romantic mood, waiting to be tapped.We are encouraged to look into our hearts and see what matters to us, just as Jean looked into the water for his missing bride and in a frazzled state saw an emanation of her, and dove into the water to go after what he was looking for. He realized that the love he has inside him is manifested in his dreams.Vigo has created a dreamworld.Which makes his film an out-of-this world cinematic experience that sublimely lingers in our consciousness.
The film version to see, which is now on video, is the restored 1990 one, that Pierre Philippe and Jean-Louis Bompoint recovered missing footage for.The film is now more decipherable from the botched up initial showing of the film, that was not well received by the Paris audience. It is good to see Vigo's almost original version of the film resurrected, at last, and look so stunningly beautiful in black-and-white.
REVIEWED ON 4/16/99 GRADE: A+
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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