Poirer found the exact manner to render expanses of damp grass, translucent or murky waves, flat horizons, leafy trails, liquid mazes run by solitary boats. From the beginning to the end, this film lives an aquatic existence, slow and sly. The director understood that this landscape, which does not allow itself to be revealed, had to be conserved inside its secret, and like the Swede who had inspired him, he freed the dreamlike aspects, an undefinable, special reverie over stretches of water calm only in appearance. The presence of Aoustin, hero of the adventure, was sensational because his appearance matched the places – rugged Aoustin, an obscure actor, knotted like a tree.

Henri Fescourt, La foi et les montagnes, Paris, Paul Montel, 1959)