Love blossoms on the canals of Burgundy.

A bargeman takes an abandoned boy into his family and raises him as his own. Ten years later, as a romance between the boy and the bargeman's daughter develops, the boy's real father comes to claim him. He is sent away to be educated but pines for his life on the barges. His father relents and allows him to return to Nivernais to marry.

This early and rarely screened film from the prolific Epstein shows the influence of German expressionism and is very evocative of the lyrical “river mood” aesthetic of the period (most famously seen in Jean Vigo's L'Atalante). A not-to-be missed event for lovers of silent cinema.

D Jean Epstein WS Pathe L French intertitles w/English subtitles TD 35mm/1923

This film has been restored by La Cinémathèque française.