Among the many novels whose authors have endeavored to depict the customs and to introduce us to the soul of one of our provinces, Pêcheur d'Islande, by Pierre Loti, is certainly one of the most popular because it is the most moving and most moved.

It was therefore entirely natural, at a time when French cinema is making a serious effort to reconquer the place that rightfully belongs to it, that is to say the first, in all the markets of the world, it was entirely natural that a wise cinegrapher had the idea of ​​making a film of this work which combines the appeal of a beautiful, sincere and tender love story with that of a picturesque picture painted against an admirable backdrop.

Mr. Jacques de Baroncelli, who has already brought to the screen works of masters of the novel such as Le Rêve, by Emile Zola, and Père Goriot, by Balzac, and whom, once already, Pierre Loti happily inspired with Ramuntcho , Mr. Jacques de Baroncelli is this well-advised cinematographer and, for a month, he has been living in Paimpol, with a troop of experienced artists grouped around Ms. Sandra Milovanof, and Mr. Charles Vanel, trying to penetrate the soul Breton to translate it into images.

I was given, a few days ago, to see Mr. de Baroncelli working in the streets and on the quays of the small port, among the attentive and collected crowds of Paimpol, and I was able to appreciate how much the Parisians had been able to conquer the sympathy of all and also how everyone in the entire region from Guingamp to Île Bréhat, kept alive the memory of Pierre Loti and knew in its smallest details the work which, at least as much as the popular song of Théodore Botrel, awarded Paimpol the best of celebrities.

This double feeling was especially visible the morning when M. J. de Baroncelli “filmed” on the docks the series of scenes showing the embarkation of the sailors before the big departure for Iceland. All of Paimpol was there: the women had taken from their massive wardrobes their most beautiful shawls and their lightest headdresses, and, with bouquets in their hands, they crowded around the artists, as moved by this simulacrum of departure as they were It was a real departure. For them, the artist who plays the role of Yann, the "Icelandic Fisherman", is Yann himself, the Breton soul delights in this kind of miracle which gives a palpable form to characters whose lives do not did not exceed the pages of a book.

In Pors-Even, in Ploubazlanech, whose cemetery, with its "wall of the missing", is one of the most moving that one can imagine, everywhere Yann and Gaud have only friends, like Loti himself when, lieutenant, he traveled the region in pursuit of the guys he was going to make his heroes.

But, whatever the charm of Paimpol and its flower-studded countryside in spring, Mr. de Baroncelli did not linger among the gorse and broom on the banks of the Trieux. Very quickly, he embarked aboard a schooner, which its owner agreed to rename so that it bore the sweet name chosen by Loti, La Marie, and, with its operator Chaix, and its artists Charles Vanel, San Juana, Swet and Wells, he will live the life of fishermen for several weeks, in order to be able to record in the smallest details all the adventures of big fishing on the banks of Iceland.

This film will therefore not only be, as I said above, a beautiful love story, but also a very accurate documentary, which will double its chances of success, because, as we know, the public who loves documentaries n There are no less numerous people than those who enjoy sentimental bands.

When it is thus understood, cinema is truly worthy of the role that some are convinced it will soon play in our intelligent and sensitive life.

RENÉ-JEANNE.