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