L'Étoile de mer (English: The Starfish) is a 1928 film directed by Man Ray and based on a short poem and longer scenario, both written by Robert Desnos.
Éternèbre is a portmanteau of éternel (eternal) and ténèbre (darkness)) The film cuts to a female selling newspapers in the street, this is André de la Rivière in drag.
Qu'elle est belle (How beautiful she is) A man is shown purchasing a starfish in a jar, returning it home to examine further.
Scenes from a railway journey appear briefly, tugboats docking at a wharfside followed by a panning city scape.
Si les fleurs étaient en verre (If the flowers were made of glass) Followed by a montage of various rotating objects, including the starfish in a jar.
Vous ne rêvez pas (You are not dreaming) The film then reveals a short end to the characters love triangle.
[2]: 429 In addition to using the lines of the short poem as intertitles, Man Ray reproduced a phrase from Desnos's Deuil pour Deuil ("Les dents des femmes sont des objets si charmants qu’on ne devrait les voir qu'en rêve ou à l'instant de l'amour", where "l'amour" replaced Desnos's original "la mort"),[3]: 267 as well as other surrealist word games ("Si belle!
[3]: 270 Man Ray used a gelatine dry-plate process to achieve the effect of textured glass and render the spectral images of the film like a drawing or rudimentary painting, thus also resolving his concern about the censorship of nude scenes.
[2]: 429 [3]: 278 Originally a silent film, recent copies have been dubbed using music taken from Man Ray's personal record collection of the time.