Here, we are clearly dealing with a challenge to our good old film studio traditions. This discrete and ferocious act which contains all the gray desolation of the fate of a province, is devoid of action in the way that action is intended by our directors. We can however find a series of psychological observations of pitiless accuracy, of a subtlety that seems, by definition, to evade any and all plastic translations. But all of those who have understood the authentic power of the cinematographic art know that, in this field, moving vision can reach unlimited eloquence and suggestive strength. (…) In this colorless story of sub-prefecture, Germaine Dulac (…) was able to avoid easy tricks of the trade that would have falsified its nature. She voluntarily did without the richness of artificial lighting, the elegance of back lighting, tracking lights and irresistible close ups. (…) She understood that this melancholic adventure needed to remain within the discouraging monotony that envelops and suffocates it, like a rain of ashes.

Emile Vuillermoz, Le Temps, 19 February 1923