49 mins., b&w, silent – French titles and intertitles.
Production : Société anonyme André Citroën.
This film covers the first Citroën crossing of the Sahara in half-track vehicles (the ‘autochenilles’ of the title, literally ‘auto-caterpillars’). This involved five vehicles which made their way from Algiers, via Touggourt, close to the Tunisian border, and then across to Timbuktu in what is now Mali. Including the return journey, the expedition lasted for three months from December 1922 to March 1923.
The expedition involved many of the same expeditionaries who would take part in the larger and better known second Citroën crossing of the Sahara that took place the following year and which is recorded in La Croisière noire(1926). The cameraman was Paul Castelnau, who was very experienced, having been an army cinematographer in the First World War as well as working on Albert Kahn’s Archives de la planète project.
La Traversée was released in 1923. The material shot by Castelnau was then re-released in 1924 as a twelve-part series intended for educational audiences under the general title, Le Continent mystérieux. This drew on footage that had not been used in the original film and some of which was ethnographic in the broadest sense.
However, Castelnau was not considered accomplished enough to be entrusted with filming the more ambitious second Citroën expedition. For this, he was replaced by Léon Poirier, who had already made his name as a feature film director.
Text : Bloom 2006