Gardiens de phare (1929)
Directed by Jean Grémillon

Film Review

After his successful debut feature Maldone (1928), director Jean Grémillon garnered further acclaim with Gardiens de phare (a.k.a. The Lighthouse Keepers), his last and most visually spectacular silent film.  The film was adapted from a popular stage play by Pierre Antier and P. Cloquemin, which was first performed in 1905 and which had previously been adapted for the screen by the Turkish filmmaker Muhsin Ertugrul as Kiz Kulesinde bir facia (1923).  The script was written by Jacques Feyder, another prominent filmmaker who already had a string of successes under his belt: L'Atlantide (1921), Visages d'enfants (1925) and Carmen (1926).  One of Grémillon's most important works, Gardiens de phare was considered lost until a copy was discovered in Denmark in 1954.

That Grémillon and Feyder should work together is hardly surprising, and the collaboration was one of mutual benefit.  Grémillon was still learning his trade and would have been receptive to advice from the older, more experienced filmmaker.  Feyder would likewise have enjoyed the stimulus of contact with an innovative and talented young film auteur.  Feyder's influence is quite noticeable throughout Gardiens de phare and can been felt in much of Grémillon's subsequent work.  Like Feyder, Grémillon favoured a naturalistic style of filmmaking, eschewing studios when he could to make use of real locations and adopting a cinematic style that was much nearer to documentary than popular melodrama of the time.  On Gardiens de phare, Grémillon was fortunate to work with a cinematographer (Georges Périnal) who shared his visual aesthetic and could give him the starkly realistic images he felt were so essential to his art.  The portraits of Breton life that make up a fair chunk of the film anchor the story in a solid reality and allow the spectator to feel kinship for the main characters.

The repeated shots of the sea storm that rages constantly outside the lighthouse give the film a terrible dramatic frenzy which mirrors the inner storm within the protagonists - a young man succumbing to that most horrific of diseases, rabies, and the father who can only watch his son's tragic descent into animalistic savagery.  The brutal naturalism of the exteriors are in constant collision with the brooding expressionism that clasps the lighthouse interior.  Yvon's mental deterioration as the illness takes him over is powerfully rendered by some startling visual effects.  Shimmering ghost-like images dance around him, with the same manic energy of the waves that continually pound on the rocks on which the lighthouse is precariously balanced.  When the light is extinguished, the old keeper has no choice but to sound the siren as the drama surges towards its terrifying climax.  By this point, you have long forgotten you are watching a silent film.  So powerfully expressive are the images that they fill our heads with sound - the howling of the wind, the roar of the sea, the manic cries of the dying Yvon and, finally, the desperate mournful screech of the siren.  It is a deafening symphony of despair.

Film Synopsis

Off the coast of Finistère, an old lighthouse keeper Brehan and his son Yvon commence their month-long stint in a lighthouse.  As a violent storm breaks, Yvon begins to show signs of illness.  He becomes moody, starts to hallucinate and finds that he cannot drink water.  His father thinks he is pining for his fiancée Marie, who is anxiously awaiting Yvon's return on land.  Recalling his recent happy times with Marie, Yvon remembers that he was bitten by a dog.  The dog's owner has just discovered that his animal has rabies.  As Yvon's condition worsens, he attacks his father in a violent frenzy.  When the light of the lighthouse is extinguished, Marie fears the worst...