L'Atalante
Director: Jean Vigo
Year Released: 1934
Rating: 2.0
Young couple spends their Honeymoon on a barge that floats down the Seine, but the female gets ideas to visit harsh, cruel Paris while her husband wants her to stay put. The characters are so one-dimensional it's hard to see them as real people, though perhaps that's Vigo's point: it's a (one-note) fairy-tale. The surreal moments - the cat-loving assistant has his entire body tattooed and keeps the hands of a friend in a jar (!) - and cinematography contribute to the mood, but the picture's choppiness and borderline indifference to its inhabitants make this inferior to any of Rene Clair's quizzical films. Vigo's death at a tragically young age adds mysticism to it, a lot like the cults surrounding James Dean, Montgomery Clift and others; what people see is the ruined potential, and treat the existing films like fragile treasures.
