Summary
Twenty years ago, Olivier Maldone abandoned his country estate, trading his comfortable
life for that of a travelling labourer. Since, he has made a humble living working on
the land and on the canals, content with his life. One day, he sees a gypsy girl,
Zita, and is mesmerised by her beauty. They do not speak, but they later meet up
again at a country ball. Meanwhile, Maldone’s younger brother is killed in
a horse-riding accident and his uncle sends the family servant out to try to find Maldone
and persuade him to return to the seat of his inheritance. Reluctantly, Maldone
returns to his former home, and marries the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Three
years later, Maldone has come to hate his new life. During a holiday break, he makes
a chance meeting with Zita and he relives his passion for her. But now it
is too late. Maldone cannot turn the clock back – or can he?
Review
Recently restored (in 2001) by Centrimage for ZZ Productions, Maldone is one of
the great achievements of French silent cinema. It was the first genuine masterpiece
from Jean Grémillon and is also a very good example of the documentary style of
film from this period. It was released in October 1928 but was not a great
success, bringing and end to Charles Dullin’s film production ambitions (Dullin
also stars in the film as Maldone).
An extraordinary work, Maldone manages to presage so many of the dominant themes
in French cinema of the following decade. The cinematography, which includes
a great deal of location work, is predominantly neo-realist in style, whilst the narrative
has strong elements of poetic realism. As in many of Grémillon’s later
films, Maldone alternates between moments of great dramatic intensity and moments
of calm, poignant reflection. On each occasion, Grémillon uses some remarkable
photography to evoke a reaction in the audience and often his originality is quite breath
taking. The best example of this is the swirling camera movements in the dizzying
ball scene, conveying the drunken and emotional intoxication of Maldone when he realises
he is in love with Zita.
The realist documentary style of much of the photography makes a strange but effective
contrast with Grémillon’s almost surrealist attempts to show on screen Maldone’s
inner thoughts and emotions. Denied the luxury of sound dialogue, Grémillon,
like many of the great silent film directors, was compelled to develop more ingenious
ways of telling a story, and Maldone shows the director at his most creative and
eloquent.
© James Travers 2001
|
