Year: 1908
Director: Emile Cohl
Country: France
Language: N/A
Fantasmagorie resembles much of what we have typically seen in early silent animation. The character(s) are physically malleable, and capable of conjuring something from nothing—from an unbounded, undefined, unlimited supply of surrounding space. With no story, no distinctive identities, and no visible backgrounds. The lack of anything even resembling realistic physics means the relationships each object has to each other is a bit wacky at best.
Fantasmagorie follows the adventures of an unnamed clown, who performs tricks for us and acts in very unusual ways.
The chalkboard drawn animations seem influenced by an earlier film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton. Drawn and filmed over a period of about four months, French cartoonist and puppeteer Emile Cohl gives us a fairly strong narrative with a passable stick figure cartoon. Honestly this type of art is something any 6 year old could draw, albeit perhaps the child-like look of the short was why it was successful.
Fantasmagorie is a well made picture, even if the drawings are sub-par. The images progress and evolve, they move quickly and trick the eye into thinking we are seeing something resembling movement. The film is not grounded in any sense of reality however and it can be difficult to follow, much like a dream. In one scene a woman wearing a large feathered hat is obstructing our main character's view, so he rips a hole of black void behind him and throws the feathers into it.
This is a very strange picture that is simultaneously entertaining and confusing. The story, not grounded in any reality, plays more like a fantastic dream and takes us on a very strange journey. Fantasmagorie is worth a view if you're interested in silent animation.
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