Atlantiques

To start with Moonfleet and Jamaica Inn, we all remember the tales of ships being lured by shipwreckers to break on the rocks. The close-up of the rotating lighthouse lenses, which is the closing shot of Atlantiques, immediately calls this to mind. There is no port behind this lighthouse, only the night and the icy waters of death, the mirage of a Europe where life seems easier but inaccessible, the gaunt shadow of an Eldorado that is not so, even if, like all Western powers it feeds off the exhaustion of the world’s poorer regions. “Good bye, I am leaving to die, this is not to be said”, Seligne confides to his friends on the beach. As the survivor of a shipwreck that haunts him, he is nonetheless determined to set out again, as surviving in Senegal has become impossible. The night engulfs everything, the adieu to his friends and the tale of his first crossing. Light is no longer part of his world. It has been left in the village on the women’s tearful faces and the graves. (Yann Lardeau)