JEUX DES REFLETS ET DE LA VITESSE (1925)
Article 5307 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-27-2016
Directed by Henri Chomette
No cast
Country: France
What it is: Experimental film

No plot

I encountered Chomette just a couple of months ago with CINQ MINUTES DE CINEMA PUR, which didn’t do much for me due to its abundance of static shots. Apparently, he learned; this one is full of movement, with many of the shots being from fast moving trains and boats, which makes it much more interesting from a visual perspective. The opening sequences are shot through a prism, so the objects are unidentifiable, and here is where the fantastic content is, if there is any. The sequence where we see the lights in a train tunnel is interesting when it starts because we’re not sure what we’re looking at. There’s a few other tricks, including a clever transition from riding a train to riding a boat, and he uses fast motion and double exposure to good effect at times. Still, much of this is less effective nowadays, as many of the techniques in use here were used by more conventional movies; think of how many times you’ve seen trains running over you on ground level like it does here in other movies. At any rate, this is much better than the previous movie mentioned.