In the pound, Pipo the dog recounts his adventures to his fellow inmates.

In South America anything can happen: the consul might give you as a snack to the sharks, you can wind up as a working man (slave) in a banana plantation or as a recruit in the governor's navy. And there's always a fire squad waiting for you so you 'd better start a revolution! It takes all Fernandel's talent to go through this eventful journey.

Herr Pierre Van Groot owns two barges. Van Groot, his wife, and his sister-in-law navigate along the north channels between Belgium and France. Herr Pierre transports construction material in his barges but he earns extra francs trafficking in diamonds, which he hides in the boat’s rudder. Pierre engages a new first mate, Michel, who gets wise to the diamond smuggling. The film was shot in 1920, but only shown once in its 80 minute entirety at a private screening in 1924.

Jean Grémillon’s first talkie, the 1930 LA PETITE LISE, is anything but talky. While opening and closing with soulful afro-Latin strains, something just above silence reigns throughout the film. Grémillon is already orchestrating the auditory menace of nuanced sound sculpting that would later pervade REMORQUES (1941), setting forth evolving rhythmic figures at an atmospheric whisper. Grémillon grafts this aural frieze onto smoldering b&w photography. Truly, the frame is often smoking for purposes of motif. In truth, this film has the most impressive use of sound I know of, including Bresson’s MOUCHETTE. It’s up for speculation as to how much technical issues played into his creative use of sound and off-screen. What is of particular note is that instead of milking the capability of sync sound dialogue, Grémillon uses it very sparingly, increasing the range of expressiveness. An abstract score of atmospheric insinuation is always in accompaniment with the imagery tonally, rhythmically and dynamically. Listening carefully, ambient sound isever at work in a subliminal music score. The story of LA PETITE LISE belongs to the sandbox of melodrama, but Grémillon grinds it into expressionistic minimalism. What is this story? Perhaps it will suffice to say that it is the reunion of a father fresh out of prison with his daughter now grown up, all prepared under a pressure cooker of lens and mic. Conflagrations arise periodically from the embers of troubled quiet, with lighting flickering to and from peaks of intensity. Emblazoned gestures extend from the sustain of affective brood, while conversations flare up before subsiding back into the simmering cauldron.