Les Feux de la mer (1948)
Directed by Jean Epstein

Film Review

After WWII, Jean Epstein made only two films, Le Tempestaire and Les Feux de la mer, both filmed on location under arduous conditions in his beloved Brittany and both running to about twenty minutes in length.  The two films are thematically linked, both paying tribute to the resilience of the redoubtable Breton in the most inhospitable of landscapes, but they are quite different in form.  On Le Tempestaire, Epstein had a completely free hand and made it the crowning glory of his Breton poems, a powerful evocation of the spirit of Brittany that combines sound and image to dazzling effect.  Les Feux de la mer, by contrast, was a commissioned information film on which Epstein imposes his unique artistry only sporadically - and it is no wonder that it is overlooked in all but the most comprehensive studies of the director's work.

In common with Le Tempestaire - the companion-piece alongside which its merits are more readily apparent - Les Feux de la mer originated from a script for an unmade film entitled Au péril de la mer that Epstein had written in 1937.  The film came about when Jean Benoît-Lévy, recently appointed to a department within the United Nations that made information films, instigated a project to make fourteen short films in fourteen different countries to help foster international solidarity in the aftermath of the Second World War.  It is worth remembering that it was through Jean Benoît-Lévy that Epstein was able to direct his first film, Pasteur (1922), and he also supported the director through his lean years of the mid-1930s via a number of commissioned documentaries.  For the French entry in the series of UN-sponsored films, a documentary about lighthouses, Benoît-Lévy engaged the services of producer Étienne Lallier, who had already worked with Epstein on two documentary shorts - La Bretagne (1936) and La Bourgogne (1936).  Jean Epstein was the obvious choice to direct the film owing to his previous experience of filming in Brittany.

Epstein was delighted with the commission, as he had long wished for an excuse to return to Ushant, the location of his first Breton film Finis terrae (1929).  When filming began in March 1948 Epstein was still only 50 but already he was an ill man (with only five years left to live).  He could not have known at the time that this would be the last film he would make.  Les Feux de la mer contains elements of the director's previous Breton films and approximates to a résumé of Epstein's later work.  There is a memorable montage sequence near the start of the film with Breton women lamenting the victims of a ship lost at sea - a touching echo of Mor vran (1931) - and the soundtrack evokes that of Le Tempestaire, with composer Yves Baudrier and sound engineer Léon Vareille again providing a haunting soundscape that brilliantly conveys the awesome power and mystique of the sea.

Much of the film consists of archive footage to help ensure it meets its educational brief.  There's an off-putting introduction that has that horribly dated patrician tone associated with public information films from this era, and much of the film's first half is taken up with a concise but nonetheless informative account of the history of lighthouses and their functioning.  For those who know nothing about lighthouses, it is interesting to hear that they had their origins in antiquity and how countries at war with one another cooperated in the building and running of lighthouses.  Equally instructive is how the lamps have evolved over the centuries.  Today, skilfully designed lens are used to magnify the power of the lamp, which is housed on a rotating platform so that its beam is not mistaken for a light on the mainland.  New technological developments - radio transmissions and radar - are touched on, but essentially the principle of the lighthouse has remained unchanged for thousands of years - a proud phallus-like structure of stone sticking out of the sea with a light on top, with some poor soul of superhuman resilience marooned inside to ensure the light stays on.

Educational though Les Feux de la mer is, it hardly grabs your attention - until the fourteenth minute of its 22 minute runtime.  This is the point at which, having met his restrictive brief from the UN, Epstein allows himself a little creative leeway as he delves into the psychological ordeal of being a lighthouse keeper.  With a storm raging outside, a young keeper (surely his name Victor is no accident) becomes increasingly fearful as his eyes dance over the pages of the lighthouse log.  His inner voice stirs his fears with vivid accounts of lighthouses that have been destroyed by previous storms.  Using, for the last time, the techniques that he had so masterfully employed on earlier films to expose his protagonists' conflicted souls, Epstein brings us into contact with a wretch who is visibly torn between his rational fear of the tempest and his irrational fear of being humiliated in front of his father if he loses his job.  This is the last great passage in Epstein's oeuvre - a three minute sequence in which a solitary individual fights a determined inner battle to overcome not just his terror of the natural world, but also the greater terror of personal failure.  Given that Epstein was an artist who, throughout his career, had to cope with numerous painful setbacks as he ploughed his solitary furrow, it is easy to discern something of a self-portrait in young Victor's struggle and ultimate triumph over his neuroses.

Film Synopsis

Around the world, a network of lighthouses ensures the safety of seafarers and protects them from the perils of the sea.  Victor, a young man in his twenties, takes up his first post as keeper at a lighthouse some miles from the island of Ushant, far from the coast of mainland Brittany.  The present keeper Malgorn is an older man whose experience of this gruelling and solitary life shows in his timeworn face.  An engineer visits the lighthouse to ensure that everything is in order and to deliver an impromptu lecture on the history and functioning of lighthouses.  One evening, as the fiercest of storms breaks, Victor is browsing through the lighthouse log when he suddenly becomes aware of the dangers of his profession.  Stricken with fear, he calls for Malgorn, but the old man can barely hear him above the cries of the sea and the incessant howling of the winds...