Silent Era : Home Video : Anthology of Surreal Cinema, Volume 1 (1924-1928) Review

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Anthology of
Surreal Cinema
Volume 1
(1924-1928)

Contents: Le ballet mécanique (1924), Entr’acte (1924), Anémic cinéma (1926) and La coquille et le clergyman (1928).

A lousy DVD collection of four great French avant-garde films.

2005 Risqué Cinema edition

Anthology of Surreal Cinema, Volume 1 (1924-1928),
black & white, 65 minutes total, not rated
including Le ballet mécanique (1924), color-toned black & white, 16 minutes, not rated, Entr’acte (1924), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, Anémic cinéma (1926), black & white, 5 minutes, not rated, and La coquille et le clergyman (1928), black & white, 28 minutes, not rated.

Risqué Cinema, RC003, unknown UPC number.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, single-layered DVD disc, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 4 chapter stops, keep case, $24.95.
DVD release date: 26 April 2005.
Country of origin: USA

At $24.95, this DVD collection of avant-garde films is a total rip-off of consumers. All of the films have been transferred from good to totally-substandard 16mm reduction prints, with much of the framing being excessively cropped. Poor-quality prints always mean poor-quality DVDs.

See our DVD reviews of the individual films: Le ballet mécanique (1924), Entr’acte (1924), Anémic cinéma (1926) and La coquille et le clergyman (1928).

Let’s hope there’s never a second volume in this series. Avoid this set and invest in one of the quality collections noted below.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase
a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.

Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase
a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

Other silent era avant-garde films available on home video:
Anémic cinéma (1926)
Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and ’30s (1921-1947)
Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema, 1928-1954 (1928-1954)
Le ballet mécanique (1924)
La coquille et le clergyman (1928)
The Crazy Ray (1923)
Entr’acte (1924)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
La folie du Docteur Tube (1915)
Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film (1894-1947)

Other FRENCH silent era films available on home video.

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