Dulac referred to L’Invitation au voyage as a “melody of images” composed in response to the literary and theatrical cinema of the time. Named after a symbolist poem by Baudelaire and a melody by Duparc, it is one of the best examples of the director’s “cinema of suggestion”, as it seeks to capture the slightest nuances of the evolving sentiments between a young officer and a married woman who meet in a night-time cabaret. The film’s movement, rhythm, and recurring circular motifs (props, setting, and cinematography), which express the emancipation of the female protagonist and the general mobility of sex roles, can also be seen to anticipate her “pure” films, such as Disque 957 (1929).

Tami Williams

The events are reduced to a minimum in L’Invitation au voyage, they almost aren’t even there. Two beings meet in an evening cabaret, but know nothing of each other. They like each other but barely say it, perhaps they just verge upon happiness, because life, with its impelling duties, makes sure that dreams remain such. What I tried to do is suggest, in every instant, the emotional state of the man and the woman in the most subtle nuances of their emotional evolution. Let it be clear: suggest, not describe. I voluntarily left out everything that falls outside of these two emotional states that meet, collide and separate. L’Invitation au voyage, which takes its name from the poem by Beaudelaire and the melody by Duparc, could be defined as a melody of images rather than a transposition of events, if I weren’t concerned about sounding pretentious.

Germain Dulac