User reviews

This film is set BEFORE the advent of motion pictures--this becomes apparent near the end of the film. It's the story about one man's dogged pursuit of motion pictures--complete with sound and color. This is NOT based on any actual inventor as it took years to progress from the earliest films of Edison and the Lumière brothers.

This animated film was included with the special showing of the 2010 Oscar-nominated short films as one of the non-nominated but highly commended films.

As for me, I liked the film but am not in love with it. In other words, while it's a very good film and I appreciate what the folks did who made it, it did not seem as strong as the Oscar nominees that were shown in the same program. On one hand, the CGI was pretty good (though the characters had an odd wood-like appearance to their skin--particularly their hands. Also, the color palate for the film was very muted--something which I understood but made the film a bit flat. On the other, the story is awfully depressing and the characters not all that likable and were difficult to connect with as I watched. My daughter also saw the films with me and we both agreed on this film--nice looking but not one of our favorites.

Polish director Tomasz Bagiński directed the surreal animated short "Cathedral" in 2002, and then the anti-war animated short "Fallen Art" in 2004. He took a different turn with "The Kinematograph". This one came out more sentimental. I interpreted it to be a look at how a personal goal can end up dominating one's life such that one forgets one's relationships (kind of like what "God's Little Acre" was about). Basically, we all need to have connections with people.

I didn't find it as good as Bagiński's previous work, but it's not terrible. I'll be eager to see the director's future output.

I wonder why he filmed this one in English.

wise illustration of this feeling. homage to first steps of cinema.the realistic portrait of passion. eulogy to love. and a real admirable animation. that does difficult to define it. because it is one of films - collection of seductive nuances. and full of sentimental memories about past as refuge, about illusion to propose to yourself immortality, about the other as sacred part from yourself, about selfishness .long time after I saw it, the image of beautiful, in profound sense, lady remains fresh in memory. because her traits are the traits of every person who was only a secondary presence when she was the source of all sense of us. so, a film who has serious premises to become an experience for the viewer.

May be a little light on the story side of things but has such memorable transitions and mix of animation and lice actions that you don't slight it too much.

a beautiful homage to the cinema beginning. warm, delicate, romantic, almost seductive. high level technical value, it has delicate charm and presents a touching story. all is perfect, at its right place. but something missing. a small detail, a realistic piece, a precise target. because its team ambition seems be to do all. the passion for cinema transforms the family tragedy in a small part of it. the message is too sweet and the sentimental significance too obvious. and the two stories, mixed with precision transforms the old man effort in reflection of animation makers. because the ambition to create a high work is based on the sacrifice of the most important part of story. and the price - a kind of confusion, a melancholic silky air.interesting, maybe useful. but not exactly enough.

Is it enough to be very good technically? Is it enough that you sit through the film and understand that the people who did it are incredibly competent in every technical aspect of filmmaking, from animation technique, virtual cinematography, direction, editing, camera movement? If that is enough for you, than this film will work. The village of this short is beautifully rendered in its intended melancholy mood. The two main inner spaces are aptly contrasted: the half-obscured, filled scientist's laboratory vs the clean pure kitchen. Each space is associated to one of the 2 characters. This is a decent competent film world created.

But i don't like what's inside. It's overly sweet to diabetes point. It grasps the homage to cinema, as a world, exactly in the same fashion as Cinema Paradiso, which suffers from the same problems. These characters, these stories Are sympathetic. But this is a heavy-handed script, we are supposed to react in certain ways at exactly certain moments. It's like beginning architecture students who while describing the building they are creating isolate every specific sensation that the users should feel when passing in those points. I appreciate my freedom to feel according to my own life, mood, experience.

My opinion: 2/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com