This article is about the principle of constructing narrative intrigue using the example of the screenplay for Jean Vigo‘s film L’Atalante (1934). It is shown that L’Atalante structure is driven by the overlapping of two different types of narrative intrigue, which leads to the famous “strangeness” and “heterogeneity” of the film. Through the reconstruction of the history of the film’s creation and the comparison of two versions of the screenplay — the screenwriter‘s (Jean Guinée) and the director‘s (Jean Vigo) — the article examines the emerging cinematic narrative of the 1930s.