In Jean Vigo’s hands, an unassuming tale of conjugal love becomes an achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope. Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain, marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), an innocent country girl, and the two climb aboard Jean’s boat, the L’Atalante—otherwise populated by an earthy first mate (Michel Simon) and a multitude of mangy cats—and embark on their new life together. Both a surprisingly erotic idyll and a clear-eyed meditation on love, L’Atalante, Vigo’s only feature-length work, is a film like no other.Read More »
Dita Parlo
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Jean Vigo – L’Atalante (1934)
Jean Vigo1931-1940DramaFranceRomance -
Léonard Keigel – La dame de pique AKA The Queen of Spades (1965)
1961-1970ArthouseFranceLéonard KeigelThrillerA countess married to Russia’s envoy to the court of Louis XVI is a gambling addict and doesn’t seem to mind that she loses nightly at the card table.Until a mysterious count entrusts her with a dangerous secret.Read More »
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Julien Duvivier – Au bonheur des dames (1930)
1921-1930DramaFranceJulien DuvivierSilentDenise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle’s store. But the glamorous department store ‘Aux Bonheur des Dames’ across the street crunches all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.Read More »
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Dimitri Kirsanoff – Rapt (1934)
1931-1940Dimitri KirsanoffDramaSwitzerlandRapt, also released under the names ‘The Kidnapping’ and ‘Magic Mountain’, is a simple drama set in the enchanting Swiss Alps. Two agrarian villages are separated by the mountains; they are idyllic but each is wary of the village on the other side. Bucolic life is disturbed when a young maiden, Dita Parlo, is stolen from her side of the mountain.Read More »