Les amants de Bras-Mort

The bargemen world can produce masterpieces : Jean Vigo 's "l'atalante " , André Antoine's overlooked "l'hirondelle et la mésange" (1920)and Lachman's forgotten "la belle marinière" bear this out .

This one suffers from a desultory script ,without strong central characters :it pits the bargemen who struggle hard to get by against the wealthy owners of several barges whose stranglehold on the "market" threatens them:the title means "the lovers of dried-up branch" .

Is it better to marry a wealthy a young man of means and lead a bourgeois life or to stay on the barge and slave away? For that matter , neither Nicole Courcel's character nor Line Noro's is convincing.

I agree with French cinema connoisseur Happytrigger : it's the atmosphere ,the depiction of the environment which count ;trust him to locate the place where this melodrama unfolds.