Laurent Mannoni and Laure Parchomenko of the Cinémathèque Française preparing the Magic Lantern machine (Photo courtesy French Film Festival)
The Byrd Theatre is a machine of entertainment that happens to show movies. That became clear on Saturday night at the 25th Annual French Film Festival when representatives of the Cinémathèque Française in Paris opened up their Magic Lantern show.
The 1928 movie palace probably hasn’t seen a spectacle quite like this one. The event involved a more than century-old three-lensed, steampunk-esque projection device and about 125 antique glass, hand-painted prismatic slides (many of them from the 18th century). Actor-narrator Nathan Wilcocks brought his rich voice and talents to the spectacular, accompanied by harpist Liénor Mancip and Foley artist (sound effects) Zakaria Mahmoud. Smoke, Death, jugglers, rats scurrying down a snoring man's throat, and Robsinon Crusoe all figured into this travelogue of experience. In the cartoon-y characters and movement provided by the slides, one could see the prefiguration of Terry Gilliam’s “Monty Python” animation, and a wild series of kaleidoscopic and fantastical imagery made me think of Stanley Kubrick’s trippy descent into the atmosphere of Jupiter in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The old and rudimentary — the original "motion pictures" — were at times eerie and prescient.
The evening began with a concert on the Byrd’s Wurlitzer and a demonstration of its many voices and moods by skilled organist Bob Gulledge.
The machines were operated by Laurent Mannoni, scientific director of the Cinémathèque, and Laure Parchomenko, the institution’s curator. The odyssey of bringing the Magic Lantern to the Byrd involved the French Minister of Culture signing off on the idea of shipping it here and an apparent effort to find insurance that equaled an adventure worthy of Crusoe’s. The term “once-in-a-lifetime” gets bandied about, but in this case it's completely apt.
If you are a cineaste, and enjoy following newer talents, I advise you to keep an ear and eye out for director and screenwriter Mélanie Laleu and director of photography Christophe Larue. They both made “Les Parapluies Migrateurs” [“The Migrating Umbrellas” (2011)] and “Noyade Interdite” [“Drowning Prohibited” (2016)], charming, brief films that pack great sensation and imagery.
The first concerns a “Lost and Found” office that takes in just about every object you’ve ever misplaced, and people, too.
Showing up as the warehouse manager of lost things is Dominique Pinon, whom you may remember from “Amélie” as a jealous ex-boyfriend who stalked one of the ladies at the café. He’s lately played Master Raymond in the Starz network adaptation of “Outlander.” Laleu told me that she’d wanted to work with Pinon and wrote a letter, not thinking he’d accept. And then he did. In the film he reminds his colleagues that when hunting through the "Alice in Wonderland" shelving system that they should search for the "container, not content."
The veteran actor Rufus, whose credits include the cult classic, "Delicatessen," "City of Lost Children," and famously the father in "Amélie" whose garden gnome traveled the world. Here, he's a man in the early stages of dementia who is losing his ability to navigate in the world.
The Experts: Lost & Found manager Jeanne-Pierre (Dominique Pinon) alongside "L'expert" (Philippe Ohrel) examining the innards of a wayward teddy bear
The magical floating umbrellas that tote away many of the lost items were part green-screen inventions and part practical wire work. The “making of” material is interesting, too, if you like to see how the magic is made.
There's a Mermaid In My Bathroom: In the world of "Noyade Interdit," every bathroom is for anybody who can pay. A diver of spare change and dreams, Estéban imagines getting the mermaid — and love.
“Noyade Interdite” concerns Paula (Diana Fontannaz) and Dagobert (Estéban). She often dresses up as a downmarket mermaid — a bit of a fantasy for a grimy peep show — and he’s practicing his diving in a wishing well to retrieve coins. And that’s important, because in the film’s lonely world, everything costs — even to lock your door properly — much less go to the toilet. The wonderful conclusion reminded me of that “It’s A Wonderful Life” line from George Bailey about lassoing the moon for Mary. A succession of quick backstory glimpses gives the little film more depth and is punctuated by the stunning conclusion. That final image became the icon for the 25th Festival's poster and program.
These were just a few elements of a packed program of symposia and film and music events a quarter century in the making. Magnifique!
