For an objective viewer, dividing a movie by ethnicity hardly makes any sense: when watching a movie is first of all an experience, an experience, is it really important where it was shot in America, Russia or Africa? There is, however, one genre for which belonging to a certain territory, language, cultural code is decisive: it is comedy. If most other genres such as western or musical first saw the light in Hollywood, then the birthplace of cinema was the birthplace of cinema as such as France. Moreover, not so blasphemous will be the opinion that she has preserved the status of the country producing the most ridiculous and interesting examples of the genre so far.
The best European comedy of 2017 “Festive Planner”. In the cinema from January 1
A locomotive diagonally cuts through the space of the frame, literally breaking into the orbit of attention of the audience. Who doesn’t know these shots from the “Arrival of the Train to La Ciotat Station”, according to the common misconception the first film that the Lumiere brothers showed to the general public (a myth that movie historians have long refuted: the premiere of “Arrival of the train” took place only in February 1896- go).
- In reality, the December show, held in 1895 on Kapucinok Boulevard and for the first time showing cinema to the world, began with the documentary “Workers’ Exit from the Factory”, while the 49-second film already following it in the screening program marked the birth of comedy (and at the same time fiction operating with a fictional plot).
- It’s about the “Watered Waterer” a short one, but for more than 120 years without losing its unpretentious humorous staging with the participation of a power gardener, a prankster boy and a hose for watering flowers. Unbeknownst to the gardener, the kid steps on the hose and the unfortunate waterer immediately douses his trousers and sets off in pursuit of the bully. What could be simpler and funnier even taking into account the inevitable for the child and, frankly, outrageous by the standards of the current standards of education punishment belt. From 123movies you can watch all these films as well.
The Comparison
Compared to the same “Arrival of the train”, the “Watered Waterer” almost forgotten by the modern public was so successful that it was to him that the first poster in the history of cinema was drawn. Moreover, the first serious competitor of the Lumieres on the basis of film production, Georges Méliès, already in 1896, shot his version of the same plot called “Waterer”: the newborn cinema has not yet managed to acquire copyright laws. Nevertheless, it was Méliès, who, unlike Lumieres who went to the side of documentary, experimented a lot with the possibilities of cinema, became the first revolutionary of the genre.
