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08 August 2024 Bonn (Germany)
Internationale Stummfilmtage: Ballet Mécanique
Cellophon (Cello Duo) - Arkadenhof der Universität Bonn
Program Info: France / France 1924, 12 min.
On the occasion of the opening of the 40th Bonn Summer Cinema, we are showing the film that was the first silent film to be shown at the festival in 1985: BALLET MÉCANIQUE, which is considered a key work of avant-garde cinema, combines (and condenses) abstract images of people, industry and everyday objects using various experimental film techniques (including animations, dissolves and quick montages) to create a Dadaist visual tour de force. The EYE Film Museum's 35mm print is based on a rare contemporary nitro print that contains hand-coloured shots in changing colours.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary edition of the Bonn Summer Cinema we open this year's festival by showing the first silent film to be screened at the festival back in 1985: BALLET MÉCANIQUE. The film, considered a defining work of avant-garde cinema, combines (and condenses) abstract images of people, industry and everyday objects using a variety of experimental film techniques (including animation, multiple exposures and rapid editing) to create a Dadaistic visual tour de force. EYE Filmuseum’s 35mm print stems from a rare vintage contemporary nitrate print, which contains hand-coloured shots in a variety of different colours.
The absolute film. A matinee recently took place in Berlin under this title, which the November group organised in collaboration with the Ufa cultural department. So it's a very modern affair. It was so crowded that it had to be repeated. Perhaps it was the most interesting film performance anyone has ever seen, and that's why I have to talk about it.
The purely formal films are all German. And they are all academic. In some fantasies they have a doctrinaire quality and smell like a drawing board. The French films are only partly painted, the rest and larger part are based on photographs, and they mix it all up in a wanton whim, certainly not as an education in form, but as a mockery of the world.
What the French do can no longer be described in words. The Images mobiles by Léger, the famous expressionist, are a great spooky of exuberant visions in the middle of a kitschy, swinging girl, giant eyes, complexes of wheels, car ensembles, flying forests, games with the number 5,000,000, and in the middle of this mishmash of kitsch and technology rushing triangles and circles as punctuations.
Oscar Bie, in: Neue Mannheimer Zeitung, May 11, 1925
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