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What a marvellous collection! Produced as an artefact that can inspire future generations of film-makers by giving them access to early short films from renowned directors, Cinema 16: Europe really is a celebration of the format in which the ingenious and the inspired are the norm. Everyone will have their own preferences but here are a few standouts: Widrich’s Copy Shop, the tale of a man who photocopies himself into existence, made by printing up footage on 18,000 sheets of paper and then re-animating them; Kounen’s Gisèle Kérozène, an insane high-speed witch chase around Paris on electric broomsticks inspired by Norman McLaren’s Neighbours and filmed in a similar fashion; Solanas’s shamelessly romantic L’Homme Sans Tete in which a man without a head goes to buy one so he can take a partner to a ball; Andersson’s spare and chilling tale of a bureaucrat’s complicity in genocide, World of Glory and Leconte’s Le Batteur du Bolero, an absorbingly funny one-shot study of a drummer having to play Ravel’s Bolero - again. The expressions that cross the disillusioned face of the drummer, played by Jacques Villeret (prize nincompoop in Le Diner de Cons) are a delight.

Then there’s Kieslowski’s graduation film from Lodz film school, Concert of Requests which has a sense of menace similar to that found in Polanski’s early shorts. The unmistakeable class of von Trier’s graduation film Nocturne is also readily apparent.

All of the films have optional commentaries, mostly by the directors themselves. It’s nice to hear von Trier joking about his film; nice also to hear Lukas Moodysson sounding genuinely surprised as he watches the film, saying that it looks much better than he remembers.

With other films from Godard, Svankmajer, Moodysson and Tykwer, not forgetting Fesser’s insane El Secdleto de la Tlompeta, the range of films included is so wide and the quality so high that quite honestly, I can think of no good reason why anyone would not want to watch this!

 

Graeme Hobbs on 8th June 2004
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