Watch the full video here:
These photos in the video of the 'mizzen men' date from the early 20th century and deserve our full attention, so imbued are they with the intensity of life for Breton sailors of yesteryear. The bodies, the gazes of this large tribe of Armorican fishermen — all of it is perfectly captured. To escape the harshness of life at sea, these workers of the sea retreat into their inner selves. When you spend your days at sea, you learn to be silent; words and the wind don't mix. Faces, both boyish and tough, cigarettes in their mouths, caps or berets firmly on their heads, serious expressions.
Men of the Mizzen is a meditative plunge into this world of men grappling with something that transcends them, attracts them, and frightens them. The sea and its legends, and soon the Great War and its great carnage.
Jean-Paul Mathelier has crafted a narrative from Jacques de Thézac's photographs, finding the perfect rhythm and the right words to bring us closer to these beings from another time, another world. Brendan De Roeck's guitar adds an atmosphere perfectly suited to this immersion.
Below, is a transcript of the film which can be seen in full here.
At the dawn of the last century, barefoot children always had their eyes turned towards the sea and the sky
. It was the open sea that dictated this
. At a very young age, they could already recognize a returning boat by its sails and predict the rising wind from the color of the morning sky
. Their gaze was actively being trained
.
Up to the age of five, boys and girls alike wore smocks and often had the same long hair
. By this age, they already knew how to gut fish, as it was one of the first things they learned
. On the water, they feared nothing
.
What remained of this childhood spent aboard from the age of nine?
They forgot the anguish of nights when everyone else went ashore, leaving the cabin boy as the sole guard on an anchored ship without a dinghy
. They forgot the chores, scrubbing the deck, and enduring angry scoldings
. They forgot the long nights of drifting or dredging, sleeping directly on the floorboards while wrapped in a coat soaked by crashing spray
. All of that faded away
.
What they still talked about was the pride of replacing the exhausted crew at the helm under the stars
. They spoke of the young cabin boy waking up surrounded by a thousand identical boats.
Entire flotillas from Concarneau to Camaret had gathered in their wake, drifting alongside schools of fish in the Iroise Sea
. This was the great tribe of Armorican fishermen
.
Sometimes it was Sunday, the Lord's day, when they did nothing
. Other times, the weather was bad, dominated by a low, hard, grey sky
. The wind reigned supreme, so they waited, all wearing the same jacket and beret
. They played cards or dominoes in silence
. Spending their days outside taught them to stay quiet, as speaking and the wind did not mix well
. With hands in their pockets, they looked inward
. Outside, the angry sea foamed to the horizon, but inside their minds, the horizon was wide open and all routes were possible
.
The sardine always led the dance, and to find it between mid-June and Saint-Michel, they headed to the southern ports
. Hundreds of boats moored side by side
. Women in traditional headdresses called out to each other on the docks, while the men were always ready to unleash a volley of swear words or grab a drink at the bistro
.
They ate and slept on board, a practice called "cabaner"
. The mizzen sail was thrown over the boom to create a shelter, and an old sail served as a blanket on the floorboards
. They slept side by side, stacking their clogs and using their coats as pillows
. Even when they were in their home port, just meters from the docks they walked every day, they still camped on board and shared the cramped space
. Fish soup was cooked directly on the deck
. This was the world of fishermen, a world of men
. The men belonged to the sea, and the women to the land, with the line of seaweed at high tide marking the boundary between the two
.
There was always someone in the crew to share fantastic fishing tales, stories of the evil eye, or the ship of the dead seen passing at night with all sails set, completely white like the living dead
. Soon, these same men would be struggling in the muddy trenches of Flanders during the freezing winter of 1914
. Hundreds of apprentices barely out of childhood were ready to be swallowed by the monstrous jaws of war, a beast that loved young, bright blood
.
There were 6,000 marine fusiliers fighting in terrifying hand-to-hand combat at Dixmude, many of whom spoke only Breton
. It was "Bara à gwin," bread and wine for a bloody rite
. Many of them did not even know how to read, learning the French words that would change their world from newspapers
. Thousands of soldiers had their names engraved on hard, cold stone monuments in the middle of their towns
. Names like Joseph Marie Kersalé, Yann Bêr Bonizec, Pierre Briec, and Corentin Le Guen were buried in the earth, forming a litany of lives cut down in the trench mud and marked with the words: "Died on the field of honor"
.
When the war ended, everything was missing: the men, the bread, the laughter, and even the wood for the shipyards
.
Launching a new open boat or cutter represented the promise of returning life, acting as a powerful, visceral pact of pride between the captain and his vessel
. At that time, no one could have imagined that one day, sailors would cry on a dock in Guilvinec as a fierce excavator crushed their boats, which were still perfectly capable of sailing
.
The open boats were always the fastest on the coast, excellent for sailing close to the wind and carrying a lot of canvas
. Hundreds of them navigated together, often at night without lights
. To tack, the wind and mizzen sails had to be repeatedly lowered and hoisted back up
. The shifting moods of the sky and sea made venturing into the open ocean feel like a bare-handed fight against something greater than man
. This was the domain of the west wind, the lord of all winds that sent endless swells to assault the coast
. When there was no wind and the sails flapped, they had to row fiercely on the oars to save the catch, making it no surprise that some later welcomed the motor as a relief
.
During the dark months, the women waiting ashore constantly worried about who would not return, swallowed by the sea
. The wind took vessels like the Louise, the Reckless, and Our Lady of Good Voyage, leaving them lost with all hands and cargo
.
The sardine was the silver fish, a shimmering light emerging amidst the whims of winds and currents
. The young sardine had softer flesh than the winter runner, invading the plankton-rich bays before the solstice
. Fishing was best with a bit of swell and light rain, allowing entire schools to be caught in the short, straight nets set out while drifting
. This was successful unless belugas, which often traveled in threes, frightened the fish away—something fishermen blamed them for in bad years
. There was also another large fish, nicknamed the "skinny one," which ruined the day's catch if it followed a boat's wake until evening
.
They fished facing east, their eyes reddened from staring intensely at the water's reflection
.
Some old men could sense the fish just from the water's appearance, or even smell a school of sardines by its fine, sweetish scent
. In the past, it was said that some men knew how to speak to the fish to draw them in
. They used a mixture of flour and cod eggs negotiated from Norway as bait
. Once the sardine school rose into the net, the full boats returned to port with a tailwind for hot soup, tobacco, and an equal share of the profits at the bistro—except for the cabin boy, who received a half-share
.
The crew alternated catches depending on the season, using dredges, longlines, lines, and traps to ensure fish populations lasted
. In the spring, they waited for the sprat, with old men watching the water from the cliffs until it arrived, bringing brief euphoria and relief from winter's hardships
. When the maturing cormorant developed a small white spot on its thigh, it was time to leave just before sunset with dozens of nets to drift for mackerel
.
The fishermen did not welcome the arrival of steam trawlers, as their method of blindly scooping up everything took up more space each year
. Without sardines, seasons of deep misery followed
.
If the mackerel also failed, families faced starvation, despair, and rising anger over bait speculation
. However, when the sardines returned in excess, factory owners enforced absurdly low prices, forcing fishermen to throw unsellable catches back into the water
. This led to strikes, revolts repressed by swords, and eventually the long, hard strike of the factory women
. These young women, hired from age 12, refused to yield until they secured a wage of one franc per hour
.
Ultimately, the traditional method of catching the beautiful sardine could not survive outside competition
. Tuna fishing replaced the disappearing sardine, dandy luggers and sloops replaced the open boats, and caps took the place of berets
. Eventually, motors brought down the sails for good
. Rising seas, climate fever, and human wandering promised a chaotic future in the winds and currents that had long carried the dark boats of the coastal fishermen
.
