Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 4 December

50 Greatest Films: L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934)

For new sub­scribers: I had a pro­ject run­ning at RNZ where I was watch­ing and review­ing every film in the Sight & Sound Top 50 films of all time col­lec­tion. Earlier this year, RNZ decided that the $75 they were pay­ing for each one was too much, so I’ve brought that pro­ject back here.

The last one was #35 – Pather Pachali (Satyajit Ray) back on 1 October.

Now we make our way to #34, Jean Vigo’s clas­sic romance L’Atalante from 1934.

Juliette (Dita Parlo) is a small-town girl who wants to see the city. She mar­ries barge cap­tain Jean (Jean Dasté) but they have to share the ves­sel with the deck­hand (Louis Lefebvre) and cat-loving, rummy, first mate Père Jules (Michel Simon) who has a cab­in full of memen­tos of his life trav­el­ing the sev­en seas.

Jean has to deliv­er his cargo to Paris and Juliette expects a hon­ey­moon. The two things end up hap­pen­ing sim­ul­tan­eously but the del­ic­ate bal­ance of the boat is dis­rup­ted and Jean’s short fuse is tested by Juliette’s affec­tion for Père Jules and her desire to see the Paris.

When Jean says that they have to return to base instead of spend­ing the night in town, Juliette decides on a uni­lat­er­al exped­i­tion. Jean – pissed off – decides to leave her and cast off.

It’s 1934 so there are no mobile phones, and Jean soon regrets his impuls­ive choice, but what can he do? Luckily, the pre­vi­ously unre­li­able Père Jules sees how to keep the fam­ily togeth­er and goes off to find Jean and reunite them all.

The romance is often fant­ast­ic­al but the Depression con­text is extraordin­ary. Inside the barge, the rela­tion­ships are heightened and the­at­ric­al. Simon’s Père Jules is a char­ac­ter that the cinema hadn’t seen before – tat­tooed, inar­tic­u­late, unpre­dict­able – and the hints at sexu­al desire take a step or two bey­ond what Hollywood was offer­ing at the time.

Outside, we see the grim real­ity of the docks, the canals and locks, and Juliette’s romantic idea of Paris is chal­lenged by petty thieves, rough sleep­ers and street peddlers.

In the 2012 poll L’Atalante was as high as #12 but – des­pite a beau­ti­ful 2017 4K res­tor­a­tion and all the extra atten­tion that entails– it has dropped to #34. It’s hard to see it boun­cing back much next time, unfor­tu­nately, as it lives on more due to its influ­ence on oth­er films – Last Tango in Paris, Les Amants de Pont-Neuf – than its impact on mod­ern audiences.

Where to watch L’Atalante

The con­tent below was ori­gin­ally paywalled.

Aotearoa: Not cur­rently stream­ing – phys­ic­al media rent­al from Aro Street Video

Australia and India: Not cur­rently streaming

Canada and USA: Streaming from Criterion Collection

Ireland: Digital rental

UK: Streaming from Curzon or digit­al rental

To see the rest of this series, check out this link.