made to
disappear
by Douglas Messerli
André
Cayette (adaptation from a novel by Roger Vercel), Jacques Prévert (scenario
and dialogue), Jean Grémillon (director) Remorques
(Stormy Waters) / 1941

Like soldiers off to war, the sailors gather, moving to their boat under
the leadership of their highly decorated captain. From the deep alterations of
black and white of the first scene, Grémillion’s film turns into a gritty study
in dark black and fading lights as The
Cyclone goes speeding off in search of the sinking vessel (scenes clearly
shot with miniatures). On board that vessel are frightened sailors who refuse
even to help toss a tow-line and a greedy captain, Marc (Jean Marchat), who
hopes the boat will sink so that he claim the cost of the goods aboard. Only a
few independent-minded sailors and Marc’s thoroughly disgusted wife, Catherine
(Morgan) have the courage to embark on a small rescue boat in order the reach
the saving tug.
They are rescued and a toe is attached to the Mirva, which mysteriously is cut; another toe is attached and it
too, this time under the orders of the captain, is cut. Since the vessel is no
longer in danger, the sailors and Marc’s wife (who has found temporary refuge
in Laurent’s cabin), are returned to their vessel, Laurent and his crew unable
to claim the payment due them for their salvage attempts.
Despite his numerous commendations, accordingly, Laurent is demeaned by
his company’s representatives and he threatens, to his wife’s approval, to
resign. Unbeknownst to him, Madame Laurent has been having heart flutters,
which her doctor seems to ignore, and she is terrified, as she admits to the
new bride, of “dying alone.”
Meanwhile, Catherine has left her husband, moving into a town hotel. A
chance meeting with Laurent develops into a near obsession, and before long,
while he checks out a possible new home by the sea, they wander together, he
offering her the starfish mentioned above, and she proffering him her deep
kisses. In contrast to the sea scenes, their seaside romance is played out in
almost blindingly bright white, which can only remind us of the previous
wedding and the comments of Laurent’s own ten-year bride at home, who at the
wedding quipped: “What’s like a bride? Another bride.”
Throughout most of the film, Laurent has been proud to have his friends
and fellow-sailors know his whereabouts at all times, but in the last scenes,
as he secretively embraces Catherine, it takes some time for his cohorts to discover
his whereabouts, and their boat misses the opportunity to answer an SOS, their
competitors on The Dutch having
already set out for the rescue.
Soon after, he is sought out again; his wife has had a serious attack,
and he hurries off to her, while Catherine, realizing it is time for her
disappearance once again, begins to pack.
Laurent rushes back into the arms of his wife, she ecstatically
embracing him before she dies. But even death is not strong enough to hold him
when he is told that The Dutch itself
is now floundering. He speeds away as Grémillon, who began his life as a
composer, builds up a chorus of rising chords and prayers to every biblical
figure from Daniel to Mary, both in a prayer for Laurent and his crew and a
lamentation for Yvonne’s death.
By film’s end we sense the death not only his Laurent’s wife and all she
has come to symbolize, but we observe the destined disappearance of Catherine
and the romantic world she potentialized. Laurent is left only his battles and
the bravery with which he encounters them. If there was ever a requiem to a
lost world, Remorques is it. The past
and everything that it represents has been, so it seems, “made to disappear.”
Los
Angeles, October 28, 2012
Reprinted from Nth Position (November 2012).
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