Branding/Breakers

In Katwijk, a small village on the Dutch coast, a young fisherman loses his job. To survive, he turns to a usurer who gets hold of all his belongings and even steals his girlfriend. Alone and with no prospects, the protagonist seeks revenge. Finally he won't react and will abandon everything to go to sea. Ivens was not satisfied with this film, possibly his only fiction except for De Wigwam (The Tepee) which he shot at the age of thirteen: “Once it was finished, we were disappointed”. He definitely gave up this genre, but became quite experienced in actor direction. As the environment plays an important role, Ivens did his best to integrate the characters into the natural scenery. “It looked like a documentary in the way it could depict a certain reality. [...] What we were mainly interested in was to make a film, not necessarily a masterpiece, which could express a kind of cinema we loved”. The breakers were shot in the sea using a rubber bag and a small mirror before the camera.