L'Hirondelle et la mésange (1920)
Directed by André Antoine

Film Review

L'Hirondelle et la mésange is assuredly the most groundbreaking film that André Antoine directed but, considered too documentary-like to be a commercial proposition by producer Charles Pathé, it was shelved immediately after it was filmed (in the late summer of 1920) and was all but forgotten for the next sixty-two years.  It wasn't until 1982 that the film's remarkably well-preserved rushes were rediscovered by the Cinémathèque française.  Edited by Henri Colpi from notes left by its director, the film was first screened in March 1984 and was hailed as a recovered masterpiece.

André Antoine had already made his mark as a theatre director of considerable renown when he began working for Pathé's subsidiary SCAGI (la Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et Gens de Lettres) in 1915.  He was motivated to bring about a similar transformation in the art of cinema that he had brought to the French stage, achieving a greater degree of realism though the use of extensive location photography, subtle mise-en-scène (including use of the close-up) and naturalistic acting.  Whereas most of Antoine's films for Pathé were literary adaptations (Le Coupable (1917), La Terre (1921)), L'Hirondelle et la mésange is unusually a slice-of-life contemporary drama, and an opportunity for its director to push film realism to its limit.  Here, we can clearly see the origins of neo-realism and poetic realism, as well as the modern realist drama, and Charles Pathé's decision to veto the film's release now seems to be as tragic as it is woefully short-sighted.

It is easy to see why Pathé had such strong reservations about this film.  For its first two-thirds, L'Hirondelle et la mésange is indistinguishable from a documentary, one offering the most authentic depiction of the life of a barge-working family of this time.  Beautifully photographed by Pathé's star cinematographer Léonce-Henri Burel (who later worked on several Abel Gance films, notably Napoléon (1927)), the film presages subsequent barge-themed dramas - Jean Epstein's La Belle Nivernaise (1924), Jean Renoir's La Fille de l'eau (1925), Jean Vigo's L'Atalante (1934) - but it stands apart and serves as a striking visual record of its era.  The lasting after-effects of the Great War are visible, as much in the characters struggling to eke out a meagre existence as in the sorry ruins that lie in discomforting neglect on the banks of the canals.  Life is a struggle but it goes on, days of drudgery alternating with days of contented repose, the world lazily drifting by as the barges wend their way down the quiet waterways of Belgium.  A town carnival provides a welcome distraction - despite the miserable weather the streets are thronged with ordinary folk intent on making the most of what life offers them.

It is only in the film's final third that anything resembling a plot becomes noticeable, but even here Antoine refuses to opt for the safe course and stick to the conventions of film melodrama.  The indecent desire that the villain of the piece - a rat-faced young schemer named Michel - has for his employer's wife has a sickening reality to it that provides the film with its first shock moment when Michel attempts to rape the object of his desire after spying on her with lecherous intent.  Antoine makes us a willing partner in Michel's seedy voyeurism by fixing the camera on the sight that arouses him - that of the wife wrapping her fleshy naked body in a sheet of lace.  From hereon, the mood of the film darkens relentlessly, slowly drawing us to its grim climax with a sense of inevitability that finds an eerie resonance in the slow passage of the barges down the canals.  When the denouement comes it is sudden, wicked and horrifying in the extreme - and you can't help but wonder if this is what really prompted Charles Pathé to withhold the film's release.  It is hard to recall a film prior to this in which man's inhumanity to man is so unashamedly exposed before a cinema audience.  L'Hirondelle et la mésange is a remarkable film that takes us on a memorable journey through the idyllic landscapes of Belgium and then into the darkest place known to man - his inner being.

Film Synopsis

Assisted by his wife Griet and sister-in-law Marthe, Pierre van Groot earns a modest wage shipping coal and building materials between northern France and Belgium on his two barges, L'Hirondelle and La Mésange.  In the aftermath of WWI, times are hard and Pierre is forced to supplement his meagre income by smuggling precious jewels into France.  He engages a young man, Michel Geneven, to help him in his arduous work, not knowing that Michel is a petty criminal who knows about his smuggling activities.  Michel quickly gains the confidence of his employer and it seems that he and Marthe will soon be married.  But it is Griet that Michel is most attracted to, and when the others are away he makes his feelings for her apparent.  Shocked, Griet repels Michel's advances and later recounts the incident to her husband.  Fearing that Michel may betray him to the customs men, Pierre bides his time, waiting for a suitable moment to dispose of the man who has become a dangerous enemy...