Entr'acte

This is an avant-garde movie and as such it's theme and plot are unclear, which is as intended because the movie is ore about special effects than about telling an actual story. This movie directs the audiences' attention to such everyday occurrences as movement, personal interactions, dancing, and running. People are part of some kind of funeral procession, but what catches the attention is the various actions that take place as the procession proceeds. Mourning is replaced by an almost frenetic need to stay active, and the movie shows this through the use of some innovative techniques, including slow-motion, use of montage, and multiple superimposed exposures, all of which convey the sense that something intense is happening. This movie is an excellent example of the French avant-garde genre which had a major influenced on cinematic styles in Europe and the United States.

We were shown this film in a class where at least once during each class, I start to nod off to sleep. Maybe it's the time of day, or the too-dark lights, but even during one of the Jean Vigo films we saw it didn't grab me. This one did, however, as it is one of the best short films of the 20's, or at least one of the more ambitious ones of the time. There are plenty of Freudian symbols, or maybe spoofs and in-jokes on the symbols (i.e. phallic imagery, cannons, guns, balls, and obsessions with looking up women's skirts).

But more importantly there is an almost need to break through anything expectable. Unlike Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, however, Entr'acte even goes for the manic and cartoon-like. Like Bunuel's film, there COULD be a certain thread of a story in the proceeding, if you try to take one to mind- here the story could be the unexpected tragedy of death turned up on its own head. However there is also the latter part of the film, which involves a large group running after (in trademark, hilarious fast-motion film) a hearse running down a road. It's a kind of peak of stimulating silent-film cinema, where everything being done can now be just as easily done- and is- on a daily basis by music video directors.

Yet Clair is so inventive with his techniques, of pushing a speed and tempo with his style, that it works well despite making no sense on the surface. It's a film made in the heights of French impressionism and surrealism, and the almost sheer confidence of the filmmaker here propels it into being unforgettable in a way. Most will seek out the Bunuel early works first, of course, but along the way this is worth a shot. At the least, you'll have your own interpretation once its done, not shoved down your throat.

This short film was conceived (hence the title) by René Clair as a diversion for the interval of the absurdist-Dadaist ballet "Relâche", with screenplay by Francis Picabia and music by Erik Satie, both artists at the forefront of the contemporary Parisian avant-garde. At the supposed first night performance in 1924, expectant patrons were greeted by locked doors and a notice bearing the single word "Relâche", which is the French word for "No Show". How absurd! Oh what fun!

To accompany the film, Satie composed a striking piece of orchestral music (arguably more significant than that for the ballet itself), and as expected the remastered film now has this added as its soundtrack, and a pretty good job has been made of editing the music to the action on the screen. This latter consists of a medley of surrealist sequences, culminating in a funeral procession, led by a camel, which escalates into a manic chase, intercut with footage from a big dipper. At the end, all the mourners disappear into thin air one by one; the corpse lives on. How significant all this is, as a narrative itself, as well as in the history of cinema as a whole, I am not qualified to comment, but it must have been seen as groundbreaking at the time, as well as good absurdist fun.

At the start of the film is a short sequence of two men firing a cannon from the roof of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and jumping up and down, which was shown separately at the opening of the ballet, not as part of Entr'acte. The two men are Picabia and Satie themselves. This footage is especially poignant, as Satie himself was dead within a year.

For Region 2 viewers, Entr'acte is included as a bonus with Clair's much later masterpiece "Les Grandes Manoeuvres".

Rene Clair and the Marx Brothers once decided to make a movie together: it's a shame that it never happened. Maybe that movie exists in some alternate universe, and I'll bet it's hilarious. I enjoyed "Entr'acte", but I'd gladly trade this film for a chance to see Rene Clair's Marx Brothers movie.

Another IMDb reviewer has synopsised the plot, such as it is: a man apparently dies. After his funeral, his coffin escapes from its hearse, and then the man returns to life. The title "Entr'acte" (an interval between theatrical acts, or an intermission) is never explained; maybe it refers to the interval between that man's two lives. I prefer to think that Clair meant this somewhat amateurish film as a mere intermission: an amusing bit of fun between the acts of his 'real' films; the ones with coherent story lines.

Some of the content in this film truly does seem to be unintentional. After the central character's funeral, there's a stiff wind blowing outside the chapel. The women in this movie wear elaborate long dresses, and the wind animates their clothing in a way that's distracting rather than funny, and surely not meant to be symbolic.

Much of the imagery in this movie seems to be pure Dada rather than signifying anything. The man's funeral cortege is led by a camel. If there's any underlying significance there, I doubt that it amounts to much. Earlier on, I was intrigued by one sequence featuring Parisian chess players. While the camera focuses on the chessboard, a shot of Parisian traffic is superimposed: suggesting that all humanity are pawns in some cosmic chess game.

Don't look for too much meaning in "Entr'acte". It's an amusing experiment, but might have been more effective at a shorter length.

Entr'acte is a light-hearted example of Dada cinema of the 1920's. The tone is consistently playful and silly and you can just tell that the film-makers are having a laugh throughout. I'm certainly not too convinced that there is any particular message here. The emphasis of the film is using the cinematic medium to showcase inventive and surreal imagery in an amusing way. The narrative, such as it is, has us follow a funeral march. Although seeing as this is a Dada film, it's not exactly an ordinary march. For one thing it's led by a camel, and for another, the people in the procession bound around in slow motion for no discernible reason other than it looks funny.

The film itself was conceived as something to be shown in an intermission between other films. It clearly was never meant to be taken too seriously, and it's quite obvious that it was made in a way that allowed some of the leading proponents of the Dada/Surrealist movement to have fun and go for laughs. Surrealism was often an art-form with a sense of humour in any case, as anyone familiar with Salvador Dali's work could attest. Like most art films from the 20's Entr'acte has aged remarkably well and like others displays a sensibility that would be replicated many decades later in avant-garde cinema of the 60's and pop videos of the 80's and beyond. All-in-all a fun film to see.