L’Atalante
Dir. Jean Vigo (1934). This is wonderful romantic film that is quietly fantastic. The majority takes place on a river barge. Lots of flowing water. A few of the scenes are quite surreal. In one the protagonists, Jean and Juliette a newly married couple, are sleeping in separate beds far from each other. They simultaneously dream of making love to each other (done, of course, rather implicitly). It’s a striking scene. Another character, the old sailor Pére Jules has a cabin filled with strange objects he has collected on his voyages, his own museum of the marvellous–quite Surrealist in many ways. Following Juliette’s story about seeing the one he loves in water, Jean, in a murky underwater scene, somersaults in the water and sees the apparition of Juliette floating before his eyes, spinning around in her white wedding dress. I really love this film, it is quiet and sweet, funny and strange. While there are scenes in Paris, the film really feels like it takes place out of time and setting. The boat flows along in its own world and the city scenes are divorced from the boat, as if they are in another world entirely. We see Jean and Jules visit the office of their company, but it too seems disconnected from the boat, as if they had travelled to another plane of existence of offices and papers unlike their slowly flowing river. Highly recommended if you don’t mind a quiet film.
Tags: surrealism
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