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DIRECTOR Jean Vigo CAST Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Michel Simon, Jacques Prévert Recently restored and re-released version of Vigo’s masterpiece, hailed by many critics as one of the greatest films of all time. An imaginative exploration of love through the marital problems of a French barge captain and his new bride, featuring striking visuals and surreal images. Moving, sensual and utterly entrancing; see it and swoon. When Juliette (Dita Parlo) marries and moves in with Seine barge captain Jean (Jean Dasté), their relationship soon shows signs of strain. Sharing the cramped boat with eccentric bosun Père Jules (Michel Simon), a cabin boy and a clutter of cats doesn't help; nor do Jean's jealous tendencies or the couple's reluctance to compromise… To this simple story Vigo brings an extraordinary array of ideas and insights, while the lustrous lyricism of Boris Kaufman's camerawork, injections of surrealism and the almost childlike innocence of the performances locate the film in a fertile territory between objective realism and subjective fantasy. In their scenes together (which include one of the most erotic in cinema), Dasté and Parlo reveal an achingly vulnerable intensity. No other movie matches its mix of playfulness, poetry, sensuality and tenderness; this masterpiece is truly timeless. BBFC advice: Contains brief nudity and infrequent sex references Further Parental Advice “Jean Vigo achieved a mature masterpiece with this movie, his only full-length feature film, made in 1934 just before his death at the age of 29, now in a restored version. Combining simplicity and delicacy with enormous sophistication and technique, it is an urban pastoral that to an extraordinary degree inspires love – both love for the film and love generally. Dita Parlo is Juliette, who marries Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain. For their honeymoon, they will go on a journey on his craft, L'Atalante. The boat is somehow both cramped and yet as unexpectedly capacious as a haunted house. They are joined by the eccentric seadog Père Jules (Michel Simon). Juliette and Jean's relationship almost founders entirely, and yet this expedition cannot quite be reduced to a metaphor for love's pilgrimage. It is too playful, anarchic, erotic and surreal. When Jules produces a fearsomely sharp knife, the dismayed Juliette sticks out her tongue – and for a second you think it is going to suffer the same fate as the eyeball in Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou. Cinematographer Boris Kaufman captures unforgettable, dream-like images. L'Atalante manages to be more modern than anything being made today.“ UK RELEASE 21 June 1947, re-release 20 January 2012 RUNNING TIME 89 minutes COUNTRY France LANGUAGE French (subtitled) |
