Entr'acte

Entr'acte is a light-hearted example of Dada cinema of the 1920's. The tone is consistently playful and silly and you can just tell that the film-makers are having a laugh throughout. I'm certainly not too convinced that there is any particular message here. The emphasis of the film is using the cinematic medium to showcase inventive and surreal imagery in an amusing way. The narrative, such as it is, has us follow a funeral march. Although seeing as this is a Dada film, it's not exactly an ordinary march. For one thing it's led by a camel, and for another, the people in the procession bound around in slow motion for no discernible reason other than it looks funny.

The film itself was conceived as something to be shown in an intermission between other films. It clearly was never meant to be taken too seriously, and it's quite obvious that it was made in a way that allowed some of the leading proponents of the Dada/Surrealist movement to have fun and go for laughs. Surrealism was often an art-form with a sense of humour in any case, as anyone familiar with Salvador Dali's work could attest. Like most art films from the 20's Entr'acte has aged remarkably well and like others displays a sensibility that would be replicated many decades later in avant-garde cinema of the 60's and pop videos of the 80's and beyond. All-in-all a fun film to see.