El aeronauta

This is the only short feature of Buster Keaton's I have seen, it is funnier than I thought, what with the bear chases and the hot air baloon. However, it didn't seem as sophisticated, clever or as funny as "The General" or "Our Hospitality", it was lacking the usual clever, knowing edge of silent films e.g. Sunrise, The Kid. Which has now been replaced by CGI. Saying ll that, some of the stunts in it are extremely cool and really funny, perhaps the best introduction to Keaton. It is available on "Seven Chances" and on "Buster Keaton Shorts (Volume 1), along with Convict 22 and other things.

Good, not brilliant, ****/****

Well, don't get too excited over the title - there are very little actual ballooning in the movie. No big stunts either, just cheap slapstick gags which some are great, but overall, the film can be quite a disappointment to big Buster Keaton's fans.

Buster Keaton stars as a young man who is so inept at anything, and being so oblivious about his own bumbling ways that it is almost hard to bear. His adventures start at the fun house of the amusement park, where Buster tries to amuse himself at someone's else expense. After failed attempt to hit on a girl on a boat ride, Buster stumbles on a hot air balloon that takes him into the wilderness. Trying to survive in the nature Buster has to overcome many obstacles, to win the heart of a girl.

It is not exactly the comedy who you expect. It is not the portrait of "baloonatic" defined by title. But a sweet story about a young man across different forms of adventure, victim of events, having as end of the long trip the love story as crown of efforts to be happy. Special for the simplicity with nostalgic flavor, it is just the window to a lost world of film.

Buster Keaton is at an amusement park. First he's in the House of Trouble and then he gets slapped in a tunnel ride. He finds a large balloon. The balloon gets loose and he gets taken for a ride. He tries his hand at duck hunting and shoots his own balloon. He crash lands and tries to do some fishing. He gets into a constant fight with a woman fishing until they run into a bear.

I really laughed when he brought out the duck decoys. It would have been better for Keaton to extend the balloon ride. That is fun and something different. Once he gets on land, the story isn't quite as much fun. It's interesting to have the bear but that's to see if he's getting bit or not. I really the balloon but it's far too short.

This minor offering from Keaton is really just a collection of sketches cobbled together to make a 20 minute short; as such, it lacks any cohesion and struggles to hold the viewer's interest despite containing a number of decent sight gags and Keaton's ever-reliable comic timing. In this one he finds himself atop a hot air balloon that has drifted from its moorings and which transports him deep into the countryside where he encounters young Phyllis Haver, a rather strapping young wench whose initial coolness towards him thaws after a number of escapades. There's very little that is memorable here, and probably the best moment is Keaton's reaction when he realises he is standing beneath a chute that dispatches visitors from the 'House of Trouble' fairground ride just after a heavy young lady has entered.