Le Seine a Recontré Paris

Manifesto of Ivens’ poetic realism, this documentary was first conceived as a lyric view on the Seine, but it reveals a more complex and articulate vision. The river becomes an abstract place, the beating heart of a city and its inhabitants, the slow and unrestrainable flow of Paris leisure, work and feelings, expressing an idea of empathy between man, his surroundings and nature. If the images alone and their flow could allude to an optimistic and appeasing vision, the commentary given by Jacques Prévert's poem adds a touch of melancholy and uncertainty. “For me the film was just this: il est toujours la vie”. When the Seine meets Paris was the first film Ivens shot in France and an immediate success: Palmares (Golden Palm) for short film at Cannes, Golden Gate at the San Francisco Festival, awarded at Oberhausen Festival. The experience Ivens got from this work, which underlines his love for Paris, will be very useful to him eight years later, when he shoots Pour le Mistral: “What I learnt during the shooting helped me later to understand how I should deal with, or rather perceive, the capricious wind of southern France, the Mistral”.