Like all directors of that time, Perret left much space for exteriors: streets, parks, woods, beaches, mountains. At a time in which attention was given only to the landscape value of locations, it seemed as though Perret attempted to harmonize places and emotions. Though he sometimes fell into making picture postcards, some of his shots were quite suggestive: in Le Mystère des roches de Kador, he successfully evoked the tragic nature of the Breton seascape, spiked with jagged black rocks. When making films with precise historical or geographic settings, he sought to get as close as possible to the real places. This normal sort of accuracy was, at the time, considered idle nonsense.


Henri Fescourt, La foi et les montagnes ou le Septième Art du passé, Paris, Montel, 1959