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Ye mei gui (1932)
Wild Rose
Wild Rose is among the earliest surviving Sun Yu films. It stars his frequent actress Li Lili, who is always energetic and it works in this role of Xiao Feng, a rebellious young woman of the countryside, who falls in love with a painter of the city. When her father disappear, the painter bring her to the city, were she isn't welcomed at all by the parents. Since she have nowhere to go, the painter quits his family and lives with her. Soon his lost of connexions with the aristocracy makes him unable to continue his job. More drama makes them distant.
The films end abruptly, suddenly war begins in China, and the lovers find themselves in a march to join the army. One must understand the complex situation that China had in the 30s to fully comprehend why this happen, and the work of Sun Yu in the leftist movement of Chinese cinema.
As with most of Sun Yu's films, nationalism is present (though maybe not as much as other films he made), and leftist ideas are strong, showcasing the problems that creates the class distinction between the lovers.
Gwen, le livre de sable (1985)
Rarely seen feature length animated film
Paper cut animation is usually seen as a cheap animation method, because we are used to cheap animation done with it. When one see the work of Yuri Norstein or Jean-François Laguonie his opinion change.
Though "Gwen (Le livre de sable)" isn't very animated, it's all about atmosphere and beautiful visuals. Even if it's paper cutout, most of the animation is made by redrawing characters every frame just like traditional animation, except everything is shaded all the time, with a particular texture to it.
The world in the film is a imaginative fantasy, mixing surrealism, middle-orient and a bit of science-fiction. It's not a character driven film, they are somewhat flat and just part of the pretty picture. The story is vague, very mysterious and you interpret it the way you want if you feel the need to, though there's very apparent references to religion, the Bible especially, and materialism. In my opinion, the film lacks something to care for, as you are left confused about what's going on for a good while. The slow pace, which otherwise is absolutely perfect for the film, doesn't help you to feel good when you are confused. The voice acting is very neutral too, they have no emotion, which kinda fits the style but doesn't help the bland characters.
The Story tells that a long time ago, the gods went away, but they left a mysterious thing which at night lay stuff around the land. These things are giant beds, sinks, clocks, etc. When two young people decides to stay out for the night, one is kidnapped by the thing, and the other, with the mother of the kidnapped, go to find the thing.
Watch it if you liked Laguonie's shorts (I sure do). Or if you like surreal films, experimental and not-only-for-kids animation. It got it's defaults, but it's worth a look.
Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola (1913)
Archaic
Early feature length films are either heavy melodramas or grandiose epics. Italian films from the 10s are better known as epics about the roman empire. Well this one stands out; it's a surreal, plot less crazy adventure through the world featuring mad pirates, gigantic sea monsters, exotic Chinese people, American warriors and even a hot air balloon war (remember, this is before WWI)! The kind of stuff you'd expect to read from a suddenly mad Jules Verne, without any scientific precision though.
I expected this film a the theoretical "What if Méliès had made a feature-length film?". But this film does not have the charm of Méliès had ten years before this. It's way less poetic though certainly imaginative. It's more adventure oriented, and stands on it's own. But I'd like to think that this film, which may have even been a bit dated in 1913, wasn't made seriously at all. You'll certainly laugh just like people did way back in 1913, and that's arguably how the director intended it. It's camp fun, and could be the most archaic feature-length film I've even seen.
La vocation d'André Carel (1925)
Simple
Despite the rather average reviews, I couldn't resist at the chance of seeing a young Michel Simon, and for that the film is worth it. He's almost a caricature, but he's certainly the most interesting character of all. Meanwhile our protagonist is a bored rich young men. He'll discover his place on earth, but the actor stays bored. No life.
Now that mean one good thing for people who hate melodramatic excess in silent films, this one sure doesn't. It feels... neutral. Now I'm not making a joke on the fact that the film is from Switzerland, it's simply that, because the film is somehow quite natural, things just goes by, tension builds up very slowly and do explode at a moment, but you're just contemplating. Maybe it's because the settings are beautifully filmed, it's a very great boat movie to look for, the picture is very pure and white, good looking boats on pretty water with pretty lands here and there. You get absorbed. But somehow, what ever happen to the characters, you don't care much.
Though no masterpiece because of it simplicity, it gain from it the fact that it is enjoyable enough to say "worth a look".
Det hemmelighedsfulde X (1914)
See it!
When you look well into the past of cinema, what you usually get are historically significant films, and that isn't absolutely a synonym for good films. Well here's one you may want to watch simply for the fact that it is good.
Sealed orders is Christiansen's first film (a man I only know for the film "Haxan")and it is war drama at it's best. Tragic twist of fate, clear storyline, good pacing and great lighting work. It's a few years in advance on it's time, but it isn't technical wonders of the cinema of the 20s or of now. It's still theatrical, though it isn't anything like the early films of it's time and before. The film survived to our days in a great condition, nothing like the jerky pictures moving at a wrong speed we like to think of.
To put it simply, you'll watch it and have a great time, as long you like dramas of this kind. But if you actually cared enough to read a IMDb review of a 1914 film, It's surely your kind.
Thais (1917)
Italian futurism it is ... NOT !
Right, so the director is a famous futurist photographer. Google his name and go see some superb pictures. But his film here, isn't much of Italian Futurism. Classical story from a 19th century novel, and the feature relies way much on intertitles. Our protagonist, the libertarian Thais, lives in a studio made up of abstract stuff, with a suicide chamber she made herself (good old 1890s!). Those backgrounds we see for a couple of minutes are the main interest of the film, and are all that is modern in the picture. Pretty much like Caligari (1920), the kind of picture that could have been a theater play, the usual fare of the days back then. I thought that the fact the director was a noted photographer could bring up interesting stuff. It turns out there's some interesting shots toward the finale, but otherwise you wouldn't want to look at this one except for historical purposes.
Bragaglia apparently wrote a manifesto of futurist cinema in 1916. I wonder if the picture followed the manifesto, and what's inside it.
For some reasons, the version I saw was in french. It's a good thing since I can read that, but the film must be Italian.
Bazar (1934)
Small piece of animated cinema
Bazaar ("The Market") is the name given to the only surviving piece of "The Tale of the Priest and of his Workman Balda", a soviet animated film of the 30s based on a poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. The film never been completed: it got destroyed in WWII.
What remains is a small piece where characters sings in a market. But really, it is sufficient to consider it quite a great, great work of animation. Yes it is hard to judge something this short, but the animation is of incredible quality, and the design of the visuals is out of this world. Not a single animated movie looked like this until decades later. The music is by Shostakovich.
It was later remade in the 40s. But then Stalin's Soviet Realism dictated the look of animated movies in Soviet Union until the 60s so it looks absolutely not like this wild piece of cinema.
It may be quite hard to get to see a surviving piece of a unfinished soviet animated film of the 30s, but this little film could be of great inspiration to today's animators.
L'enfant de la haute mer (1985)
Not the 2001 movie
I'm writing this short review to clarify one thing : this movie isn't the one everyone think it is. Other reviews are about a 2001 short movie made by students, that you can get for free on internet. This 1985 short movie is another one and it seems pretty much forgotten by now. I had the opportunity to see it by pure chance, as it was taped on a VHS 10 years ago by my mother. It's about 7 minutes long and tells the same story as the other movie, simply because it is the adaptation of a short story.
The visuals are like a René Laloux animated feature film. Since this movie was made in the same time period and also in France, it's not so surprising. The colors are a bit pale, the main character is transparent sometimes. The narrative is very abstract (not a single word is said in the film) and end with a quote that clarify the whole story.
It's a fine little short, very different from the new one. I tend to prefer the older one because of the better backgrounds and of it's surrealism, while the newer, a bit more realistic, do have some splendid visuals.