La hija del agua

Admittedly made merely to exploit his wife Catherine Hessling's "photogenic" attributes, Jean Renoir's solo directorial debut already displays his trademark humanism and painterly eye – while Hessling herself turns in a far more naturalistic performance here than she did in NANA (1926).

The plot is simple and melodramatic: Hessling loses her father, is abused by her brutish uncle (possibly inspired by Griffith's BROKEN BLOSSOMS [1919]), falls in with crooked gypsies (who ultimately incur the wrath of the people and have their caravan burned to the ground), is taken in by a wealthy family but is caught stealing for her uncle's sake…until the latter gets his come-uppance and the girl is engaged to her employer's young son. The accompanying organ score is effectively evocative to begin with but, eventually, it takes a tediously avant-gardist turn.

The film's barge opening anticipates Jean Vigo's L'ATALANTE (1934) and the search at sea, F.W. Murnau's SUNRISE (1927); there is also some remarkably fast cutting throughout, a style which Renoir would largely forsake in his subsequent work. The highlight of WHIRPLOOL OF FATE, however, is undoubtedly an amazing dream sequence which, uncharacteristically for the director, is heavily reliant on optical effects and camera technique; incidentally, the two shorts I followed it with on Lionsgate 3-Disc "Jean Renoir's Collector's Edition" proved similarly experimental.

Jean Renoir's first film, WHIRLPOOL OF FATE, was made when he was 30 years old and starred his first wife Catherine Hessling (who had modeled for his father Pierre-Auguste Renoir). Essentially a melodrama in the style of D. W. Griffith, it concerns the plight of a young woman who works on a canal barge with her father and uncle. After the father dies in a work related accident, she escapes from her drunken, lecherous uncle and winds up with a group of gypsies who take care of her. She meets a young thief there and after many trials and tribulations, she marries the son of a middle class family and it all works out.

Although the story is clearly indebted to Griffith, the visuals are Renoir's own. WHIRLPOOL contains scenes that would be recast in later movies such as F. W. Murnau's SUNRISE (1927) and Jean Vigo's L'ATALANTE (1934). The highlight is a dream sequence which is worthy of Hitchcock. Hessling, wearing stark monochromatic make-up, gives a respectable silent film performance as the hapless orphan who goes from one mishap to another. The male performers acquit themselves well in what are essentially one-dimensional characters who are strictly plot motivated.

This new Kino Lorber Blu-Ray is a nice upgrade from the old 2007 Lionsgate DVD release. The picture has undergone a 4K restoration effort which helps to clear up some of the contrast issues especially in the night scenes and gives a sharper image throughout. The original concertina score by Marc Perrone has been replaced with one by Antonio Coppola. It is more user friendly in that it offers more variety but I prefer the original which enhances the bleakness of the story. The Blu-Ray comes with an audio commentary by critic Nick Pinkerton that provides background on Renoir and the film...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Renoir this picture may be, but it's no masterpiece; indeed, it's not particularly good.

The story gives the impression of having been cut down from a sprawling melodrama and crammed into too small a space, with highly-coloured events occurring in implausible and ultimately tedious sequence: the film is only about seven reels, but felt considerably longer to sit through by the end. There is no character development to speak of, the various individuals concerned being one-dimensional cardboard figures who pop in and out of the plot as convenient, and the leading lady is neither convincing as an adolescent nor, apparently, much of an actress. The male roles are fairly well-played within the limitations and stereotyping of the script, but Catherine Hessling all too often gives the impression of simply striking poses and painting on expressions to order.

The dislocated and arbitrary nature of the calamities that befall her verges at times on the bathetic, since practically no prefiguring takes place. If a man falls overboard, or a quarry opens up suddenly underneath her, or a family abruptly up sticks and move abroad lock, stock and barrel, then it is purely for the convenience of the plot. As others have commented, the most memorable sequence is that of the nightmare where she finds herself surreally beset by villains from earlier episodes; this experimentation was presumably where the director's heart lay. A little of this, however, goes a long way.

All in all, the film isn't even bad enough to be good. An actress of Mary Pickford's calibre might perhaps have pulled some successful emotional impact out of the twopenny plot, but failing any particular interest or sympathy for the central character (it's hard not to share La Fouine's impatience as she proves such a shrinking liability in her first poaching lesson) I felt this picture had little to offer. It tries for low humour; it tries for high drama; it tries for romance. It doesn't achieve a terribly impressive level in any of them.

This will mostly seem outdated now. A silent melodrama about a young destitute girl in the French countryside trapped between men who desire her, and on the other hand by her efforts to comply or reciprocate. Various bargains that have to do with money as the more or less thinly veiled metaphor for sex.

But there is a dream sequence here that, as so often with these silent dreams, I urge you to see. It's about the girl transmuting in her feverish mind these barely comprehensible forces that threaten the virgin soul into images that will make sense; so an imaginative flight, a sensual, delirius game of hide-and-seek where the coarse, violent men haunt her down, where a piece of rope transforms into the snake of mischievous desire, a point-of-view rushing towards a door and the light outside, and finally the man who can protect her shown, quite literally, as a champion on his white horse galloping across the skies.

The overwhelming experience is so perfectly about the distorted imprint of the world. This should be seen next to the best moments in Epstein. There is shadow here cast by the eye in motion, emotional or otherwise.

Another note that intrigues, a blemish in the perfect picture of her well-to-do benefactor. His parents are shown at one point hastily leaving for Algiers on account of business; what was probably meant innocently at the time, now can only leave us wondering at his source of wealth.

This is the first film Renoir directed alone and it is by far his best silent film, of the ones I have seen (Whirlpool of Fate, Nana, Charleston Parade and The Little Match Girl).

The editing was just amazing. The quick cuts where so spot on and well paced. And the trick shots where like something from a poetic avant garde film. There was also a very nice close up of eyes, which reminded me of the Spaghetti Westerns.

The story is not bad. Reminded me a little of D.W. Griffith mellow drama. The acting is also not too bad but the strength of this film is first and foremost its visual aspect, something sadly lacking in his other silent films I have seen.