The Mesmerizing Poetic Realism of "L' Atalante"

Jean Vigo's sole feature length film, L' Atalante, is one of the most influential films of all time. Released in 1934, the film looks forward to much of the future of European arthouse film-making, including the French New Wave. L' Atalante is deeply naturalistic. There's a roughshod simplicity to it. A man and a woman get married, Jean and Juliette (Jean Daste and Dita Parlo), spend their honeymoon on the titular boat -- captained by Jean -- and get into a fight that leads to them briefly splitting. There are really only four characters, the other two being the two crew-mates to the tiny, sea-worn vessel; one a hardened veteran, Père Jules (Michel Simon), who's seen it all and one who's young and inexperienced.  

Vigo masterfully tells their story with intimacy, warmth and humanity. Whimsey abounds in the film with the surreal and spine-tingling mingling with the earthy and the everyday (in this way, Vigo shares a lineage with Federico Fellini) -- including two fantastic dream sequences that portray the couple's longing for each other (One, a feigned suicide attempt into the water by Jean where he imagines Juliette is there, which is still every bit as technically astounding today). 

The film in fleet -- at just 85 minutes long -- but it forms such richness in this little time. The couple clearly is in love with eachother. They flirt, they tease, and they fight. They are in honeymoon bliss, kissing and holding each other at every chance they can get. But the initial euphoria caves in; Jean begins to grow jealous, insecure and overbearing. He fears he's undeserving and that Juliette is straying. Juliette wants to explore Paris when they dock, but Jean is not trusting enough. She sneaks out in the middle of the night, and Jean abandons her. They both grow morose and out of sorts without one another. And so, not surprisingly, they are inevitably reunited and wordlessly make-up, collapsing giddy into each other's arms.

The film finds sweetness in its humanism. There's a gruffness to the setting, almost always on the boat; foggy, dark, tough, at times tedious and unpleasant. But this is put into contrast with the depths of humanity that abound on the boat. There's the newlyweds of course, but there's also the first mate, who's a man of simple pleasures; a jolly man who's past his prime, but content with his lot in life.

Ultimately the film's power comes from how heightened the examination of its events are. There's a poetic quality to the way Vigo observes the mundanity in the narrative. There's a realism to it but also an ethereal quality. 

Grade: A