I had the pleasure on the evening of this past Sunday, June 17th, to watch the American television premiere of Jacques Feyder's rare and almost legendary 1925 silent feature Visages d'enfants, presented on Turner Classic Movies as their weekly silent-film offering. Film historian Jean Mitry is famously quoted as having stated that if he could save but one French film from the 1920's, it would be Visages d'enfants, an outstanding example of the rural-themed film that has been such a distinguished, if sometimes intermittent component of France's cinematic heritage. After seeing this highly sought-out film for myself (albeit through the equivocal lens of television transmission), I can understand Mitry's regard and enthusiasm.
The film, which was directed by Jacques Feyder from a script that he co-wrote with his wife Francoise Rosay, is set in an Alpine village, and tells the story of a little boy struggling from the grief caused by the recent death of his beloved mother. The child's quandary is further burdened by his widower father's subsquent remarriage to a local widow with a young daughter by her late husband. The boy's stepmother is sympathetic in herself, but unwittingly becomes the focus of her stepson's opprobrium simply for taking the place and role of the mother he cannot forget. His new stepsister, who entered this new menage just as reluctantly, also comes to bear the brunt of his dislike and distrust. Through a series of unexpected and dramatic incidents, the emotions of all the household's members are tested to the utmost, and all are challenged with powerful lessons of love, understanding, and forgiveness. A new family is forged through a crucible of anguish and hope.
The most immediately striking quality of the film is its stunning cinematography, shot on location in the beautiful Alpine region. The locations, gorgeous in themselves, are given further character by some striking camera angles and movements. Host Robert Osborne stated that the film was shot/set in Switzerland, yet other sources I have encountered claim France as the site and setting.
A similar ambiguity inflected the period in which the story occurs. I had assumed that the setting was contemporary (1920's), but nowhere does one see any of the accoutrements of a young twentieth century, such as trains, automobiles, and telephones. The characters likewise wear folk costumes that must have changed little in the preceding centuries, and are overwhelmingly agricultural, pastoralist folk, living very close to the land in much the same way as their ancestors had surely done. Contemporary audiences might have been more attuned to nuances of temporal setting that would elude a viewer like me, coming to the material almost a century later, but I was astonished to think that anyone in France in 1925 would have lived in such a rustic fashion as these characters.
The film is also notable for the fine, assured performances of the entire cast, and the three children who are central to the story are especially remarkable in this regard. Jean Forest as the grieving boy, Pierrette Houyez as his guileless little sister, and Arlette Peyran as the grudging new stepsister all impress with their engaging and realistic portrayals. Forest, who appeared in Feyder's earlier Crainquebille, shows an artistic sensitivity beyond his years in his conveyance of the different faces grief can take, ranging from the sorrowful and sullen to the enraged and defeated.
Like that earlier film Crainquebille, Visages d'enfants is also graced by momentary touches of fantasy, used to convey the inner states of the characters. The films' Cartesian poetry generates a visual and rhythmic quality that links them to the Impressionist phase of French cinema, in its day an aesthetic movement almost as influential as the now better-known Expressionism of German film. For this quality alone, both these wonderful films deserve to be seen, studied, and cherished for generations to come.