Review by boblipton

On a small Breton island, where the land is heath and the fishing so poor the people starve half a year, an old man goes out to shoot a rabbit for dinner. He finds a box with something in it and hides it quickly. He is noticed, and the greedy islanders quickly come to think it holds gold. They try to get the location out of him.

Jean Epstein's movie is a silent movie, shot wild (without sound) on the Île d'Hoedic, with the islanders playing the roles. Their dialogue, music and a few sound effects were added in production. It's supposed to be based on a local legend, and the sea and shore and menhirs and buildings become characters in their own right. It is clearly a documentary, but not of the modern kind. It's clearly based on the work of Robert Flaherty, who went to exotic locations and built stories around the people he found there.

Whether the source was Epstein or Flaherty or both -- they were revered film makers in their day -- the influence split in two. Directors like Michael Powell would take their cameras to exotic locations and build stories in works like THE EDGE OF THE WORLD and I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING. Others, like Robert Bresson, also influenced by the Russian Academicians' "Theory of Types" would abandon trained actors, and use local individuals, sometimes even animals such as donkeys, in their movies.