Review of L'invitation au voyage

Expanding poetically on lines from Baudelaire (My child, my sister / dream sweetly / of going, down below, to live together... / the glistening furniture, / polished by the years, / will decorate our room), Dulac's film takes place in a stage-set night club with painted nautical decorations—even the outside walls and doorway are obviously painted, too. The Woman (Emma Gynt) enters, wearing a voluminous white fur coat which she keeps up to shroud half her face. In several short, repeated vignettes we've seen her mending or embroidering at home, ignored by a faceless husband. Now she sits in a corner of the club, spurns the advances of a merrymaker, and orders a drink as the band plays and people dance. At the bar a naval officer sits—I'm not sure whether it's le Matelot (Paul Lorbert) or le Marin (Raymond Dubreuil)—and gazes. In this symbolist film he's the object of desire, or perhaps the catalyst, dressed in a handsome double-breasted blazer, with brilliantined hair, a strong profile and smoldering eyes, and mixed Afro-European features. He approaches the Woman, they dance and go0 back to the table, she lets her cloak slip off her shoulders, they drink champagne and gaze at each other, he strokes her hand, she imagines herself on board a ship, he opens a stage-set porthole and then there are shots of ships and water but when she looks through she sees a messy backstage workshop, he buys her a souvenir miniature ship with Invitation au voyage painted on the side, they sit entranced by a violinist and imagine romantic nautical scenes, he notes her wedding ring and a locket with a photo of a child, she withdraws a little, he dances with another woman, and she goes home to bed. The invitation has gone no further. The film is very attractively photographed, and the overlay of artificial sets and dreamy longing is fascinating, as is the curious emphasis on the power of music, even in a silent movie.