The last model for Renoir père, Dédée, became the first model and wife of the son, changing her name to Catherine Hessling for films. According to an interview in the documentary Jean Renoir, Renoir in those early years "saw the cinema solely through her eyes. All his films reflect his love for her." André Bazin notes, "She was a curious creature, at once mechanical and living, ethereal and sensuous. But it seems to me that Renoir saw her less as a director than as a painter...worried less about directing the actress in her dramatic role than...about photographing the woman from every possible angle." La Fille de l'eau, Renoir's first solo directorial effort, was written for Hessling by Pierre Lestringuez, who also plays the lecherous uncle to the persecuted young heroine. The film, a melodrama marked by cruelty, was shot in natural settings but blurs the boundaries between the natural and dream worlds. A much-admired dream sequence was shown separately in avant-garde circles.