La Fille d'Eau

La Fille d'Eau
*****/5
Jean Renoir

I got a whole box set of Renoir films for my birthday that I'm just now getting around to watching. This is the first one, from 1925, and in fact, it was Renoir's first solo directing role. It seems Renoir has been making incredible films since the beginning. The story, as with most good films, is simple. A girl's father dies, and when her uncle treats her horribly, she runs away and falls in with some bad people until she can be redeemed. However, this is barely the surface of what it is like to watch this film. My history teacher, Gene Stavis said the other day, “The story is less than 50% of what a film is about.” I could not agree more. This film, ridiculously retitled Whirlpool of Fate for America, has so much more going on. It is a complete coalescence of the state of film up to that point, in much the same way people mention Citizen Kane being. However, Citizen Kane blends its ideas much more smoothly than this film does, although the chunkiness here does not really detract. There are scenes of Russian montage, and a magnificent nightmare sequence that has got to be one of the best dreams committed to film. You can see more than a little of this dream in the films of Jean Cocteau. La Fille d'Eau is shot mostly on location, with the scenes on the water being the absolute best. Look for (although I don't think you'll miss it) the shot where a man walks in place along the top of a moving barge. Also when the girl is sitting on the barge's rudder, the camera is on the other end, which keeps her in the middle of the frame as she swings on it and moves the whole background. The effect is simply incredible.

Recommendations
Anything by Jean Renoir or Jean Cocteau