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It's curious, to say the least, that two MGM films, produced in the same year and with essentially the same audience appeal, are both talkies and musicals, and both feature color scenes (in the case of Broadway Melody, only one), yield such different results.

Both are transitional films, adapting to new technologies, sound, and, more precariously, color, but they exhibit different approaches to this adaptation.

If Hollywood Revue lacks rhythm, lacks script, and there are clear limitations in editing and sound design, Broadway Melody seems a few years ahead, displaying a much faster pace, a script (albeit a simple and melodramatic one), and a much greater ability to integrate a narrative into a musical film. There are also obvious advances in sound design and even exterior scenes (actually just some aerial shots of New York at the beginning and a fixed shot of what appears to be Times Square at the end). Interestingly, it retained the written separators, with descriptions of each scene, in the old silent film style.

In short, it seems clear that the adaptation to sound was not linear and, even within the same studio, varied greatly from film to film, depending on the technical team in charge. This even occurred in works shot simultaneously.

The work on this Broadway Melody won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1930, which seems to be a recognition of the significant advances in adapting to new technologies demonstrated by the technical team.

Special mention goes to the duo Bessie Love and Anita Page, who lead the cast, supported by Charlie King, Jed Prouty, and Kenneth Thomson, in a lower position. It's a shame that the script followed the melodrama approach, rather than the romantic comedy, which would quickly become the norm for musicals in the following years.

The musical numbers themselves also lack ambition. A few years later, Busby Berkeley would revolutionize the genre with his grandiose choreographies, filmed with boldness and precision. Here we are still at the level of revue theater, in this regard. As I mentioned earlier, it was a gradual but surprisingly quick journey, in retrospect. Three or four years were enough to elevate the filmed musical revue to a grand Hollywood musical.

Let's face it, it was a remarkable feat.

Much more than a film, this 1929 Hollywood revue is, above all, a historical document, the fruit of a time of great change in the film industry.

Indeed, the late 1920s marked the end of silent films and the widespread adoption of sound. This change, which today seems logical and simple, was actually difficult to manage. After all, cinema had always been silent for nearly 30 years of its history, and the initial technical limitations in sound capture could be a real headache for directors. There was no concept of a sound designer; sound enters the cinema through dialogue, often rigid, and music, but not simultaneously. The first sound films (like this one) sometimes have moments of dialogue or monologue, sometimes musical moments, but never do music and dialogue mix. Firstly, because the technical difficulties of recording required it, but also because no one had ever made sound films, so the concept of a soundtrack, beyond musical numbers, didn't exist. Ambient music, background sounds (of groups of people, busy streets, etc.), and sound effects designed to heighten the dramatic, comedic, or frightening effect of a scene were completely unknown.

For all these reasons, early sound films disappoint, due to the rigidity of the performances, the lack of rhythm, and the lack of sound effects.

This film is nothing more than a revue, filmed on a theater stage. Technically, it is avant-garde, featuring full-length sound (that is, from beginning to end, as many early talkies were limited to one or two sound scenes, with the rest of the film silent) and even, surprisingly, some scenes in color, using one of those experimental and unconvincing techniques that predated Technicolor.

Furthermore, it utilizes the entire available cast of the studio, MGM, to accentuate the grandeur of the production. Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer, and Joan Crawford, among many others, participate in short sketches throughout the revue, in the characteristic style of this theatrical genre.

This patchwork of short sketches lacks rhythm, with somewhat poor editing. It uses hosts to fill gaps between numbers, as if we were at the theater and had to wait for the set change. It mixes comedy, drama, circus acrobatics (which pass for dance), and musicals, sometimes simple, sometimes with many chorus girls, all on the same stage and for over two hours.

It's not a film; it's a filmed revue that aims to be a parade of studio stars and a showcase of the technical potential of the new cinema.

For all these reasons, it's valuable as a glimpse into a time, a taste, and a complex transition in the history of cinema. For this reason, it's recommended, solely and exclusively, to cinephiles who appreciate the history of the seventh art.

Greece has an endemic tradition of radical, extreme cinema, which expressly seeks to shock the viewer, thereby conveying a critical, pathological feeling, truly distrustful of human nature and social organization. The main exception would have been Theo Angelopoulos, with his long takes and beautifully and profoundly filmed social and political themes.

But this Animal, by young director Sofia Exarchou, the second feature of her career after Park in 2016, fits perfectly into this allegorical trend of physical and psychological violence.

The film shows the dark side of mass tourism on a Greek island through a group of entertainers from a large hotel, who live in a semi-collective communion, behind the scenes of the building, in an empty, depressing routine, without meaning or escape. A far from golden cage that consumes their lives, in a supposed paradise for foreign tourists, leading them to a progressive nihilistic alienation. A film for those who enjoy pessimistic views of life.