La fille de l'eau

The ambiguity of politics in La Fille de L'Eau replaces the ambiguity of stylistics from Une Vie Sans Joie (1924). I find it hard to determine which early idea presented by the film should then be applied throughout the film... that hope springs from the unsung courage and perseverance of everyday people or that wisdom is seated in the lives of those who know to avoid being in the way of their husband's racing car? Is Renoir flippant in his observation of the casualness of fate and abnormality of instinct? This film leaves me with more questions than answers as it is a launching point for social themes that will be teased out throughout Renoir's career. I would like to think that Renoir cares about "the little people" but it is well recognized that he is ambiguous and ambivalent in his political expressions. This film is a good example. The documented views of Vigo's social cinema have a solid application in the barge scenes and the milieu of the film more generally, however, the stylistic system dominates the cinematic experience(like all Renoir films really). Psych-driven flashback shots and angular close-ups eventually give way to rapid editing montage sequences. The caravan scene is first expressed in Eisensteinian juxtapositional collision montage and is then remembered by Gulune in Gance-like hyper-psychological rapid montage. As Gulune undergoes further stress from her environment and circumstance, she hallucinates...and nightmaresque sequences are constructed from every French Impressionist technique in the book: superimpositions, mattes, over-exposures, surreal visuals (mise-en-scene), reverse-projection, slow-motion, oblique blocking within the frame, unnatural settings, and even mirror distortions a la Dr Tube (Gance). Gulune was close to death and I conjecture that this is the over-arching theme of the film as opposed to the tired fixations on Renoir's supposed ever-present and all-pervasive socialist politics (even if subverted and often excused under the banner of "naturalism"). Perhaps my thesis would hold more weight if La Fille de L'Eau had been produced in 1926 or 1927 as sound film was to bully silent film to death... but then again Renoir was always considered forward-thinking and generally ahead of his time.

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.

A complex and sympathetic narrative about a young woman that begins with her working on a river barge with her father and her uncle and follows her through difficult circumstances after her father dies, exploited but resourceful, even using petty crime, particularly in the company of a scampish boy. There's something Pickfordesque about Catherine Hessling (who became Mme. Renoir), and a touch of D. W. Griffith in her occasional hanky-winding, but Renoir is not as sentimental. There's a dream sequence as good as Hitchcock decades later, night scenes (a haystack on fire), and observations about the ways of the well-born that are a start on the way to La Règle du jeu.

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 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.