MovieChat Forums > L'Atalante (1947) Discussion > the most beautiful film ever made

the most beautiful film ever made

posted 16 years ago by Don_Farshido
4 replies | jump to latest

I'd call myself a cinephile and I've seen hundreds of really great films by now. Last night I watched this film for the first time and never in my life I've been so sure that what I have just seen is beyond everything else. And I cannot explain why. L'Atalante is the most poetic, the liveliest, the saddest, the most humanistic thing ever made with a camera, and I am about to swear that I will never revise this statement. A bit childish, I know.

Btw: There is no argumentation for any "greatest film ever made" and probably a thing like that doesn't exist, it's just that there may be one case where you suddenly feel it and can only appreciate this incredible vibration inside your soul accurately by using the superlative when refering to the work of art which caused it. And in the case of L'Atalante, which I have only seen once (next to many favourites which I have seen more than ten times), that was the case for me. The superlative is the ultimate expression for something which is completely beyond my ability to explain it intellectually or rationally, it's just the top of my feelings.

[–] petergorse 15 years ago

This was one of the first "great" films I saw when I became a cinephile, and after ten years of watching most of the "great" films I watched it again. I absolutely concur, that L'Atalante is beyond them all. True genius.

[–] sarahllsjones 15 years ago

and this masterpiece was created by such a young director, truly amazing.

[–] Irishmonk 15 years ago

Definitely one of the greatest and most sadly forgotten films of all time. The death of the brilliant director, Jean Vigo, at the age of 29 remains one of cinema's greatest tragedies. Had he lived a normal lifespan his name would surely be inscribed in the top pantheon reserved for the likes of Welles, Hitchcock, Bergman and Kurosawa.

[–] barnesgene 11 years ago

A hint as to what makes the movie so beautiful: Like early Fellini and Italy, Vigo shows the real France, warts and all. And if you've ever seen some of the Impressionist paintings that include moving trains in the distance, you'll instantly recognize in L'Atalante the love affair these artists had with the new technology -- and the new squalor -- in their lives. All as a backdrop to make you concentrate on the inarticulate -- and yet oh-so articulate -- characters. What other movie could make me really want to know how the red wine in an early supper scene actually tasted? It's magic.