Juliette meets her prince in postwar France in this loose adaptation of Alexander Grin’s Scarlet Sails by the director of Martin Eden Pietro Marcello.
A hard-working WWI veteran Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) returns to his home village to discover that his wife has passed away during his absence, leaving him with a young daughter, Juliette. They find a new home with Mme Adeline (Noémie Lvovsky), sharing their joys and troubles with her. Raphaël is a gifted woodworker and is particularly good at making toys for Juliette, but does not get along with the village folk, who suspect him of killing a merchant. Years go by and Juliette (Juliette Jouan) grows into a beautiful young woman. One day she meets a pilot named Jean (Louis Garrel), as was predicted by an old sorceress.
The second feature by Italian film archivist and documentary maker Pietro Marcello was the opening film in the Directors' Fortnight program at Cannes in 2022. Based on a novel by a Soviet writer, but set in France, it elegantly combines airy 16 mm shots with 100-year-old footage. However, first and foremost, just like Grin’s novel, Marcello’s film is a moving and inspiring story about overcoming loss, the search for love and beauty and the hope that will inevitably prevail. The magical dream told in Marcello’s familiar language of poetic realism was the debut of French actress Juliette Jouan, whose character inherited the tenderness and inner strength of Assol from Alexander Grin’s novel.
The film will be shown in English and French with Russian subtitles.
Scarlet
Director Pietro Marcello
France, Italy, Germany, 2022. 100 min. 16+