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