L'Atlantide (1921)

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Movie
Original title L'Atlantide
Manuel Orazi - L'Atlantide.jpg
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1921
length 163 minutes
Rod
Director Jacques Feyder
script Jacques Feyder
production Louis Aubert
music Joseph Jemain
camera Victor Morin
Amédée Morrin
Georges Specht
occupation

L'Atlantide is a French silent film fantasy drama directed by Jacques Feyder in 1920/21 . The film is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Benoit .

action

North Africa, at the time of French colonial rule at the beginning of the 20th century. On a reconnaissance expedition, the two foreign legionaries, Captain Morhange, and his subordinate Lieutenant de Saint-Avit get lost in the Algerian Northern Sahara and are found unconscious. On his return to his unit, the lieutenant explains to a comrade what happened to them. Men found him and his captain unconscious and took them away. The Arab-looking men claimed they were subordinates of Antinea, the ruler of the once-lost kingdom of Atlantis, and Morhange and him to a hidden oasis.

Antinea is an enigmatic beauty whose line, according to her own statement, goes back to Neptune and to which the men immediately succumbed. All her lovers go mad and sooner or later commit suicide if the Queen turns away from them. With great inner willpower, Morhange resists the infatuations of Antinea, whereupon the ruler in her holy anger incites de Saint-Avit to murder his captain. The lieutenant can evade the required bloody act and flees the oasis with the help of the heir to the throne Tanit-Zerga. Ltnt. De Avit has just finished his story when the arrival of an Arab is announced: He should lead de Avit and his interlocutor to Queen Antinea ...

Production notes

L'Atlantide was created mainly in 1920 in the Algerian Sahara region (including the Ahaggar Mountains in the south of the country and the Touggourt settlement in the north) and was premiered on May 28, 1921. It was Feyder's first full-length feature film. A German premiere cannot be proven.

The film is said to have cost around 1.8 million French francs, an enormous sum of money for the time. Still, it turned out to be a huge box office hit.

Manuel Orazi not only designed the film structures, but also the film poster for L'Atlantide .

Further films

The myth of Atlantis was echoed in a number of other films. GW Pabst shot an early, bilingual (French and German) sound film version in 1932. The German version was called Die Herrin von Atlantis , had Brigitte Helm in the title role and Gustav Diessl as Morhange. In 1948 the remake was made The Mistress of Atlantis with María Montez in the title role. In 1961 a version filmed the previous year with Haya Harareet appeared in a Franco-Italian co-production.

reception

Reclam's film guide commented on L'Atlantide : “An elaborate film that was a huge hit with audiences, but also an artistic disappointment. The criticism only praised the skill with which Feyder turned the desert and the sand into a teammate. "

Bucher's encyclopedia of the film sums it up: “Feyder… achieved… some spectacular effects when photographing the huge areas of shimmering sand. The audience was more than compensated for a shallow story by the romantic-exotic atmosphere and the extravagance of the production effort. "

Jerzy Toeplitz wrote: “Contrary to convention, most of the filming was outdoors. The real heroine of the film was therefore the real Sahara desert, cruel and poetic at the same time. "

Individual evidence

  1. Reclams Filmführer, by Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. P. 32. Stuttgart 1973.
  2. Bucher's Encyclopedia of Films, Verlag CJ Bucher, Lucerne and Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 51.
  3. Jerzy Toeplitz: History of the film, Volume 1 1895-1928. East Berlin 1972. p. 462.

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