HASHER’S DELIRIUM (1910)
aka Le songe d’un garcon de cafe
Article 4219 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-4-2013
Directed by Emile Cohl
No cast
Country: France
What it is: Animated weirdness

A man sees the food on his plate turn into abstract images before he begins to mutate himself.

I found this listed in the Walt Lee guide, where it is given the year of 1906. The fact that it is also listed as being from Gaumont and being animated made me decide that the year is wrong, and that this movie from four years later is the one in question. It’s typical Cohl; it’s basically abstract shapes morphing into scary faces and other things, all designed to baffle the “hasher”; I assume that’s who the observer is supposed to be. It’s only about two minutes long, so it serves as a decent introduction to his work.