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Jean Vivo's L'ATALANTE Screened at the 24th FICM

Katia Barragán

As part of the Jean Vigo Award program at the 24th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), L’Atalante (1934), by French director Jean Vigo was screened.

The film tells the story of Juliette, a young woman from a small town, and Jean, the captain of a barge, who marry after a courtship. Weary of her monotonous life aboard the vessel the young wife finds herself drawn to the bright lights of Paris, a turn of events that plunges her husband into deep despair.

The presentation was led by film programmer Sébastien Blayac, who thanked the attendees for taking the time to attend the screening. Blayac noted that the movie’s production took place under difficult circumstances. He also highlighted that Jean Vigo was a fascinating figure in film history; he died at the age of 29, having completed only three short films and one feature—the very film the audience was about to see.

The programmer shared a brief overview of the filmmaker’s career, mentioning his other works, À propos de Nice (1930) and Zéro de conduite (1933). Following the premature death of his father, Vigo grew up in boarding schools—an experience that, in some ways, is reflected in his work.

In 1934, he filmed L'Atalante and died just three weeks after its premiere. Due to his illness—tuberculosis—he directed several of the final scenes from his sickbed. The film’s history has been marked by the challenges involved in recovering its original version.

After its initial release, the production company Gaumont cut about 20 minutes of footage. This followed the labeling of his previous film, Zéro de conduite, as "unpatriotic," which led to Vigo’s work being perceived as a threat to society.

In 1934, sound film was still in its infancy, and it was common practice for exhibitors to make their own cuts to the prints intended for screening. Consequently, in addition to the footage removed by the production company, various versions of the film—many of them altered or abridged—circulated, which made subsequent restoration efforts significantly more difficult.

There were several attempts to recover the film until, in 1990, a copy was discovered in London that came much closer to Vigo’s original version. However, it was not until the 2000s that film historian Bernard Eisenschitz managed to reconstruct a version that closely approximated what the director had intended to present.

The version screened at the festival is a 2017 restoration, digitized in 4K resolution. Blayac emphasized the significance of the fact that it took nearly 80 years for the film to be recovered in a form close to its original conception.

Furthermore, he acknowledged the mark Vigo left on the history of cinema with just a single feature film, and pointed out the involvement of filmmaker Martin Scorsese in the restoration efforts. Finally, Blayac described L'Atalante as a visionary film for its time, inviting the audience to view it from the perspective of a spectator in the 1930s, so that they might appreciate—and be surprised by—its moving images.