The opening of "L'Atalante" sets the distinct moods of joy and sadness that will define it. Juliette (Dita Parlo, the German mother from "Grand Illusion"), a small town girl had just married Jean (Jean Dasté) a barge captain; arms in arms, they walk toward "L'Atalante" their honeymoon 'resort' en route to Paris where the cargo is bound to deliver a shipment.
The looks on their face is solemn, the bride seems more nervous than her husband and there's a sense of urgency and hastiness in that ceremony. The rush is so palpable than the cabin boy accidentally drops a pot of flowers in the river, he's immediately summoned by First Mate Père Jules (Michel Simon) and together, they fetch a few branches to improvise a bouquet. There's something pathetic in that ceremony, not in the characters, but in the way they try to keep on appearances, it's too conventional to last and Simon's antics prove the French proverb right: hunt the natural, it quickly returns.
Maybe that explains Juliette's nervousness, she didn't know the life she was embarking on, and neither did any viewer. Once they get in the Atalante, something strange happens: a kiss evolving to a sort of non brutal struggle and then the first magical moment: as the barge goes, we get a beautiful shot of a mother crossing herself, Juliette walks on the roof with the quiet grace of a tightrope walker and the courage of a lion tamer, this is her new life she's going to tame, getting on the top will provide the right perspective. The rest of the film is all marital banalities: fun, joy, jealousy arguments and fights, transcended by Jean Vigo's unique vision.
Vigo was only 29 when he made his first full-length feature film, an age that wouldn't strike as relatively young when we remember that Welles was 26 when he did "Citizen Kane" and Truffaut 27 with "The 400 Blows". Some movies are like disease that better get caught at young age and it was Capra who compared cinema to a sickness whose only remedy was cinema itself. Son of an anarchist, coming to age at a time of intellectual turmoil, it's possible that Vigo was obsessed with such an idea of life that he could only translate it through improbable juxtapositions of images, patchworks between the real and the weird, the beautiful and the ugly, structural narrative and anarchical spontaneity... inspiring directors like Duvivier or Carné, or what is commonly known as French 'poetic realism'.
Vigo made a few short films before, a documentary about an Olympic swimmer that certainly allowed him to experiment underwater filming, the most memorable shot of "L'Atalante", another documentary about life in Nice and the contrast between the rich and the poor, and finally "Zero for Conduct", a film set in a boarding school and promoting rebellion like "If..." would do in 1968. The disastrous reception of "Zero" prompted Vigo to seek a less controversial material for what would be his next project. With the script written by Jean Guinée, the collaboration with cinematographer Boris Kaufman and the help of one of France's rising stars Michel Simon, Vigo developed the idea of a romance set in a barge: a man, a woman, a weirdo as first mate, and the rest was history.
It took more than a decade for the film to be seen in its entirety and provoke an epiphany in the minds of critics and future filmmakers like François Truffaut; Vigo never witnessed the film's impact as he died in September 1934 of tuberculosis, a condition worsened by the filming that was extended during winter. Vigo couldn't even complete the directing, embedded, ignoring that his job on Earth was done, that he would be known now as one of the most innovative and influential director ever is perhaps a consolation for the injustice of his untimely death. Or maybe his death had a meaning, as if his legacy was caught within the flow of melancholic poetry the film delivers. After all, is there another director who'd make his debut, his masterpiece and his swan song all in once?
There's all of that in "The Atalante", the birth of talent, the culmination of a genius in some scenes that are too beautiful to be even described... as for the swan song, maybe it's because the director knew it would be the last, and as if he was caught in a frantic delirium of creativity, he left a rather strange movie. Still, within its strangeness, we find hints of "La Strada" with the jovial street peddler flirting with Juliette and causing her to leave the boat, we see premises of Kusturica's "Underground" in that beautiful underwater sequence, we se Truffaut, Jeunet and... Vigo.
The film is carried by a simple vision about simple people in ordinary situations but escaping from the coarseness of their living through unsuspected beauties. When there's a temptation for ugliness, the film takes the other side.When it looks like Père Jules is about to assault Juliette, she makes him wear a dress and fun ensues. One thing leading to another, he shows her his personal treasure and another side of his personality, even behind his crass façade there's something good about the man. One must look at the inner beauty of things, it's only when Juliette is missing that Jean can see her as he never saw her, whether underwater or in an unforgettable dream sequence.
"L'Atalante" is like these old and dusty items you find on a flea market, at first they look banal and dirty but the closer you look, the more valuable they seem. And once again, it was Vigo's only film, a unique model, because you don't need a career to be an inspiration, one good film made with the heart made Vigo an immortal in Cinema's Pantheon. L'Atalante isn't just a boat but also a lighthouse for aspiring filmmakers.
The looks on their face is solemn, the bride seems more nervous than her husband and there's a sense of urgency and hastiness in that ceremony. The rush is so palpable than the cabin boy accidentally drops a pot of flowers in the river, he's immediately summoned by First Mate Père Jules (Michel Simon) and together, they fetch a few branches to improvise a bouquet. There's something pathetic in that ceremony, not in the characters, but in the way they try to keep on appearances, it's too conventional to last and Simon's antics prove the French proverb right: hunt the natural, it quickly returns.
Maybe that explains Juliette's nervousness, she didn't know the life she was embarking on, and neither did any viewer. Once they get in the Atalante, something strange happens: a kiss evolving to a sort of non brutal struggle and then the first magical moment: as the barge goes, we get a beautiful shot of a mother crossing herself, Juliette walks on the roof with the quiet grace of a tightrope walker and the courage of a lion tamer, this is her new life she's going to tame, getting on the top will provide the right perspective. The rest of the film is all marital banalities: fun, joy, jealousy arguments and fights, transcended by Jean Vigo's unique vision.
Vigo was only 29 when he made his first full-length feature film, an age that wouldn't strike as relatively young when we remember that Welles was 26 when he did "Citizen Kane" and Truffaut 27 with "The 400 Blows". Some movies are like disease that better get caught at young age and it was Capra who compared cinema to a sickness whose only remedy was cinema itself. Son of an anarchist, coming to age at a time of intellectual turmoil, it's possible that Vigo was obsessed with such an idea of life that he could only translate it through improbable juxtapositions of images, patchworks between the real and the weird, the beautiful and the ugly, structural narrative and anarchical spontaneity... inspiring directors like Duvivier or Carné, or what is commonly known as French 'poetic realism'.
Vigo made a few short films before, a documentary about an Olympic swimmer that certainly allowed him to experiment underwater filming, the most memorable shot of "L'Atalante", another documentary about life in Nice and the contrast between the rich and the poor, and finally "Zero for Conduct", a film set in a boarding school and promoting rebellion like "If..." would do in 1968. The disastrous reception of "Zero" prompted Vigo to seek a less controversial material for what would be his next project. With the script written by Jean Guinée, the collaboration with cinematographer Boris Kaufman and the help of one of France's rising stars Michel Simon, Vigo developed the idea of a romance set in a barge: a man, a woman, a weirdo as first mate, and the rest was history.
It took more than a decade for the film to be seen in its entirety and provoke an epiphany in the minds of critics and future filmmakers like François Truffaut; Vigo never witnessed the film's impact as he died in September 1934 of tuberculosis, a condition worsened by the filming that was extended during winter. Vigo couldn't even complete the directing, embedded, ignoring that his job on Earth was done, that he would be known now as one of the most innovative and influential director ever is perhaps a consolation for the injustice of his untimely death. Or maybe his death had a meaning, as if his legacy was caught within the flow of melancholic poetry the film delivers. After all, is there another director who'd make his debut, his masterpiece and his swan song all in once?
There's all of that in "The Atalante", the birth of talent, the culmination of a genius in some scenes that are too beautiful to be even described... as for the swan song, maybe it's because the director knew it would be the last, and as if he was caught in a frantic delirium of creativity, he left a rather strange movie. Still, within its strangeness, we find hints of "La Strada" with the jovial street peddler flirting with Juliette and causing her to leave the boat, we see premises of Kusturica's "Underground" in that beautiful underwater sequence, we se Truffaut, Jeunet and... Vigo.
The film is carried by a simple vision about simple people in ordinary situations but escaping from the coarseness of their living through unsuspected beauties. When there's a temptation for ugliness, the film takes the other side.When it looks like Père Jules is about to assault Juliette, she makes him wear a dress and fun ensues. One thing leading to another, he shows her his personal treasure and another side of his personality, even behind his crass façade there's something good about the man. One must look at the inner beauty of things, it's only when Juliette is missing that Jean can see her as he never saw her, whether underwater or in an unforgettable dream sequence.
"L'Atalante" is like these old and dusty items you find on a flea market, at first they look banal and dirty but the closer you look, the more valuable they seem. And once again, it was Vigo's only film, a unique model, because you don't need a career to be an inspiration, one good film made with the heart made Vigo an immortal in Cinema's Pantheon. L'Atalante isn't just a boat but also a lighthouse for aspiring filmmakers.