Le retour à la raison

I understand that Man Ray's 1923 short "Le retour à la raison" - "Return to Reason" in English - is an example of pure cinema: returning the medium to its most basic form (moving images). It's not the greatest movie ever made or anything, but I recommend it just for the bizarre factor.

I'm not an artist nor am I someone who can be considered to be artistically inclined. I am not going to sit here and pretend to understand what it is that I have just watched. However I will state that in my opinion it was a pleasant viewing experience. It really is the director danglingn a bunch of shapes in front of a camera for 2 and a half minutes before being shown a human figure. Soemhow I did not mind watching this. If anything I had a good time. Would I watch this again? No, probably not however, if it was showns to me again I would not protest. It is only 3 muinutes long. It does invoke a strange sensaiotn of nostalgia but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I had by the end experienced glee like a child being shown a sparkly toy, dread and discomfort, and confusion all at diferent intervals. Impressive.

It starts in chaos. It's the chaos of the mind. The gargantuan amount of facts threaten to bring all thoughts out of order. So many trees, we can't see the forest. That kind of thing. So we just see static, gibberish dots and lights.

Then we have a date with a woman and go to the carnival with her. Our head is too full to see what really matters. We spin around, with the woman in our arms, and hundreds of light dots spin around us. We manage to sort our thoughts again and to return to reason. It's quite the opposite of going insane. We realize what really matters in life. Tits without a face. We are cured.

Quick and to the point (not that there is much of a (clear) point), Man Ray's works are some of the most unique in artistic history, and his film, in particular, are quite fascinating. While Ray is better known for still photography, he takes full advantage of the grand invention of cinema by infiltrating his films with constant movement. Shapes are deformed and inanimate objects become animate...it's all very avant garde and will probably please those who enjoy the experimental, surreal, and unique.

Mildly entertaining twaddle - definitely gets better towards the end.