Restored and re-released in 1990, L’Atalante transforms a simple love story, that of a newly married couple living on a river barge, into a kaleidoscope of dazzling digressions and off- beat characterizations complete with tour-de-force scenes that feels both still fresh and startling. Watch for a legendary, uproarious and unpredictable performance by Michel Simon as Père Jules; the luminous beauty of Boris Kaufman cinematography; and, because this is Billy Corgan’s favorite French film, the marvelous music of Maurice Jaubert.
