Jean Renoir liked to mark the true beginning of his career as a filmmaker with Nana, his second solo feature as a director, although this earlier silent effort (1924), while atypical and inferior to its successor, is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Strongly influenced by the experimental French impressionist cinema of that period and starring his wife Catherine Hessling, the film follows the dreams and adventures of an orphan who escapes the advances of her uncle by hiding in a Gypsy camp. The results are more pictorial than most of later Renoir—he saw the film largely as an opportunity to experiment with various visual effects—but full of charm and poetry.