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Linvitation au voyage 1927 1

Eye on Sound: L'invitation au voyage

Director Germaine Dulac is best remembered for La coquille et le clergyman (1928), ‘the first surrealist film’.  The year before, however, she directed a story about a married woman looking for adventure in a night club which was inspired by a symbolist poem by Baudelaire. Thijs Havens accompanies the film on guitar and piano.

Linvitation au voyage 1927 4

The result is an atmospheric avant-garde cinematic poem, a “melody of images”. Dulac was a true pioneer; she abandoned the theatrical performance and narrative style of early cinema – when actors still expressed their feelings with exaggerated mimicry – and allowed the images to speak for themselves.

decadent

Dulac presents a married woman whose husband neglects her emotionally. She starts looking for attention elsewhere and ends up in the decadent night club 'L'Invitation au voyage”, where she is courted by a young officer. She is drawn into a romance, only to discover her admirer is a married man.

equal

The film shows the attraction between a man and a woman in a rhythmic montage of scenes. The gender roles are shown to be equal and reversible: who has power over whom?

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Eye on Sound

With Eye on Sound, Eye focuses on the special relationship between image and sound. Expect live music to silent films, live bands from today to classics of yesteryear, brand new scores to films from the versatile Eye collection and special attention to the often neglected art of sound design.

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