La jolie bretonne is an example of the transition from social dramas towards patriotic films shot by Pathé during the First World War. A young woman by the name of Anaik awaits the return of her fiancé, Yvon, a sailor on active duty on a destroyer ship. On a Breton beach Anaik meets a painter who takes her on as his model. The situation of the young couple, separated by the war, illustrates Pathé’s efforts to create stories rooted in the reality of its audience. The film also portrays the opposition between the artistic world of Paris and the quiet life of traditional Brittany, and the tension between two social classes, expressed through the ambivalence between town and country, leisure and labour. The pull of a different place and the desire to move up the social ladder can be found in many Pathé films of the period.

Carole Fodor