The director of ‘Martin Eden’ presents his delicate and humanistic adaptation of ‘The Red Sailboat’ by Alexander Grin at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight
Shortly before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic – only three years ago, although it seems like a century has passed – the Italian filmmaker Pietro Marcello presented his monumental adaptation of Jack London’s novel ‘Martin Eden’ at the Venice Festival. In that torrential film, the Neapolitan director showed off his talent for interweaving fiction and archive images to portray a Europe doomed to decline and moral emptiness. With that rebellious and furious work, Marcello showed his opposition to a world hit by the corruption of the cultural industry and by the entrenchment of capitalist-inspired individualism. Now, in contrast to the darkness and rage of ‘Martin Eden’, Marcello presents in Cannes the delicate ‘L’Envol’, a work that starts from the darkness of the First World War and then portrays a story with several loves. First, it shines through the mutual devotion shared by a widowed man, Raphaël (a rugged and magnetic Raphaël Thierry), and his daughter, Juliette (extraordinary Juliette Jouan, making her big-screen debut). The relationship harks back to the unforgettable bond between father and daughter in Yasujirō Ozu’s ‘Late Spring’. And then there is the relationship that develops between Juliette and an aviator (Louis Garrel) who appears on the scene to alleviate the loneliness of the young woman.
In the film –and in ‘The Red Sailboat’, the short story by Russian Aleksandr Grin on which the film is based–, the arrival of the adventurer appears haloed by an esoteric cloak of mystery. Towards the beginning of the story, an older woman (Yolande Moreau), accused of being a witch by the villagers, predicts that Juliette’s existence will be disrupted by a prince who will come sailing through the skies with “red sails”. This is how “L’Envol” gets carried away by the idea of magic and fantasy, which acts as a counterweight to the poverty and marginalization in which Raphaël and Juliette live – she is also accused of being a witch and must face a world ruled by gender inequality and violence against women–. A lover of thematic and conceptual counterpoints, Marcello presents in ‘L’Envol’ a resounding clash between the rural and noble existence of father and daughter – who live by trading pieces of wood that the father carves – and the emergence of an urban life dedicated to technological and capitalist development (a reality that Marcello evokes with images of the emergence of the first large Parisian shopping malls; some of these images come from ‘The Paradise of the Ladies’, the 1930 film by Julien Duvivier). In fact, ‘L’Envol’ is constituted, in a contemporary key, as the celebration of a way of life closer to nature, less vitiated by consumerism, more attached to humanist values.
Marcello has recognized the influence on his cinema of the teachings of the Armenian documentary filmmaker Artavazd Pelechian, who defended a form of montage based on the recurring appearance of images with a strong symbolic meaning (the so-called “distance montage”). In ‘L’Envol’, Marcello turns the images of hands into the allegorical heart of the film. Towards the beginning of the film, the viewer is dazzled by a beautiful scene of the meeting between the velvety hands of Juliette, still a baby, and the hardened hands of Raphaël, hardened by his work with wood and his participation in the war. Throughout the film, the hands of father and daughter will meet again in various detail shots, images that shape a poetic discourse on the flow of life, which is based on suffering and hopeful, painful and happy existence. , by Raphaël and Juliette. Built on a set of beautiful songs sung by Juliette, a dazzling soundtrack by Gabriel Yared (author of the music for ‘The English Patient’) and a penetrating celluloid photograph –which confirms the celebration of an artisan way of making movies–, ‘L’Envol’ shines like a romantic hymn to hope, like a powerful beam of light with which to corner the darkness that threatens our present.
For lovers of romantic fables with a political message
DATA SHEET
Direction: Peter Marcello Distribution: Louis Garrel, Noémie Lvovsky, Raphaël Thierry, Juliette Jouan Original title: L’Envol Country: France Year: 2022 Release date: Coming soon Gender: Drama Film script: Pietro Marcello, Maurizio Braucci, Maud Ameline, Geneviève Brisac. Novel: Alexander Grin Duration: 100 minutes
Synopsis: Somewhere in the north of France, Juliette grows up alone with her father, Raphaël, a soldier who survived the First World War. Passionate about singing and music, the lonely young woman meets a magician one summer who promises her that one day scarlet sails will come to take her away from her town. Juliette will never stop believing in the prophecy.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
