Barque sortant du port

Back in 1895, most films being released were mere experiments, recordings of daily life, one minute documentaries serving mainly as a device used to kickstart cinematic history. This particular film is among the more fascinating works of this era mainly due to its beautiful ocean imagery. It is made up of only one take that only clocks in at about fifty seconds, and yet it s more complicated than many of the other Lumiere films. There are many moving parts (the men, their boat, the wavy sea), the camera stays steady, but the visuals do not. The waves rock fearlessly, and the film ends before your conscious that it has begun. This is an interesting visual experiment crafted during the dawn of film, and should be judged as such. In comparison to many other Lumiere films, this is certainly a treat for the eyes and is a treasure of early cinema.

The men (and one woman) were protecting whales. In one of the boats (though) there were 5 questionable men. they each took turns saying, "I don't know my past, I don't know why i'm here."'

Barque sortant du port (1895)

This Lumiere Brothers film is quite interesting o watch today thanks in large part to some terrific images and some fine camera-work. Three men are in a rowboat heading out into some violent and crashing waves while a group of women watch on a pier. Yeah, there's obviously nothing ground-breaking here but I must say that I was highly impressed with the camera-work. I'm not sure where the camera was placed but it really captured some beautiful images and especially the waves and the boat being thrown around. Another major plus is that the camera stays still and gives us a perfect look at the events.

this is possibly the most beautiful of the early Lumiere shorts. A boat rows from the front of the screen away from the audience to the back, while to the right, women wait on the port. The camera, as usual, does not move, but the play of sunlight on the waves are gorgeous, and the rippling movement is so vibrant, especially within such a static frame, that it looks like one is watching an actual scene behind glass.

As with 'Demolition d'un mur', the real frisson of the film comes from the unexpected. The scene proceeds as expected, the boat moving steadily along. But, just as it turns, a stronger wave lunges, and almost capsizes the boat. Before we discover what will happen, the reel, and the film, ends. These early films made no precautions for the necessity of extra reels.

But the effect is quite shocking. The unexpected violence is unsettling enough, but with the film over, and loose ends nowhere near being tied up - indeed, just initiated a narrative, in the dying seconds - the audience is left agonising in the dark. What happened next? Inadvertently, the audience is required to imagine for itself, imagine what's not capable of being represented by the cinema, something the Hollywood generic system to come will stamp out. With its daring use of ellipsis, is this the first art-film, the first 'Cat People'?

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

At once this film is interesting but yet frustrating in seeing things being worked on that are now commonplace. The interesting aspect is the framing of the shot, which is reminiscent of a painting in the way it sets the foreground (the jetty) and a background (the sloping hill on the horizon). However as a film it has the boat moving through one towards the other, which is an interesting development that provides plenty to look at. The women on the pier are worth watching as is the boat, so the viewer is held by both.

However it was here that the film annoyed me by just "ending". I had expected the planned film to see the boat move out of shot around the jetty, which would be a logical end, leaving the viewer wit only the static fore and back grounds to contemplate. It did annoy that the film just stopped instead of ending. That said though, it is yet again interesting to watch as part of Lumière's development.