La madone de l'atlantique: A dusty, salty relic

Is it worth the watch?

Honestly, only if you have a thing for old French melodramas that smell like sea salt and dust. If you like fast-paced thrillers, skip this. You will probably find it boring. But if you want to sit in a room that feels like it hasn't been opened since 1938, you might get a kick out of it.

It is not exactly a masterpiece, but it has this weird, lingering gravity to it. The story moves at a snail's pace, which is either meditative or a total drag depending on how much coffee you have had.

The Atmosphere

The cinematography captures the coast in a way that feels honestly bleak. There is this one shot of the waves hitting the rocks that just stays on screen for ages. It felt like the director was trying to hypnotize me or maybe just forgot to yell cut. 🌊

Yvonne Rozille is doing a lot of heavy lifting with just her eyes. There is a scene where she stares at a letter, and I swear she didn't blink for an entire minute. It made me feel uncomfortable, which I think was the point.

Comparison

It definitely does not have the lighthearted, frantic energy of something like Sports Day at Animal Village. It is much more in line with the somber, heavy-handed stuff you might find in Man of Iron. It lacks that spark of invention you get in Zhenshchina, kotoraya izobrela lyubov.

• The lighting in the tavern scenes is all wrong, way too yellow.
• The dialogue sounds like it was written by someone who had never actually heard a fisherman talk.
• One of the background actors is clearly trying not to laugh during a death scene.

I caught myself looking at my watch halfway through, but then something shifted. The silence in the final act is actually pretty powerful. It is not trying to be a big, loud, important movie. It is just a story about people who are tired of being who they are.

It reminded me a bit of the quiet despair in No Greater Glory, though they are very different animals. Maybe it is just the black and white film stock doing the work. Either way, it left me thinking about it for a few hours after the credits rolled. Which is more than I can say for most things I watch these days. 🎞️