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Article: Movies; Vigo's Poetic Voyage; `L'Atalante,' Adrift in Romance
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 10, 1990
- Author:
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"L'Atalante," Jean Vigo's 1934 masterpiece about a pair of ardent
young newlyweds afloat on a barge down the Seine, is an exhalation of
lyric sensuousness. Rapt, exuberant and as fragile as mist, this
passionate tone poem drifts in its own bubble of oddly dissonant,
almost fatalistic romanticism.
"L'Atalante" is the most perishable of all the great works of
the cinema, and the least imposing. There's such innocence and
invention in Vigo's style here that the film seems less a consciously
constructed work of art than an emanation. No other great master has
left behind a smaller body of work than Vigo. In addition to
"L'Atalante," his only feature, he made only a couple of
documentaries ...