Last night, Rotterdam festival-goers in Pathé's Hall 4 witnessed a small miracle. Some film fragments from 1906 by the legendary Georges Méliès were now shown in stereoscopic 3D for the first time. So you could imagine yourself present on the set of this French pioneer who was the first to understand that cinema is not there to capture reality, but to enchant and entertain the audience.
That he, without knowing it himself, also made one of the very first 3D films is actually a bizarre coincidence. His films, including the then spectacle Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), were so successful that pirate copies (even then) soon appeared in America. To get ahead of them, he decided to double-record his films with two cameras side by side from now on. One negative for Europe, the other for overseas. And let a double shot with two cameras side by side be exactly what you need for stereo film, understood film historian/filmmaker/collector Serge Bromberg. Indeed, with the help of today's digital technology, he managed to add a third dimension to some three of those old fragments.
It was the surprising finale of a compilation programme presented live by Bromberg, in which he took us through the history of stereoscopic film like an accomplished entertainer.
So much for antique 3D. The Rotterdam festival is also screening two new films where audiences may put on the inevitable glasses. The first is the Dutch premiere of Martin Scorsese's Hugo, based on a children's book about a little boy living in a train station, and also an ode to early cinema. Méliès' name also reappears here. Hugo is now one of the Oscar favourites and is universally praised.
The second is something of a first, as the South Korean debut A Fish, in which life before and after death are inimitably mixed up, is the first 3D film in the Tiger competition. Remarkably, director Park Hong-min goes against the established view by claiming that 3D is precisely not realistic. A nice idea, which is unfortunately not really supported by the film itself. Despite original mystery and absurdist moments, A Fish too much of a puzzle to captivate on any other level, and the added value of the 3D effect is questionable.
So no more than two new 3D films at the Rotterdam festival. Contrary to what some people predicted a few years ago, it turns out that the application of this 'new film language' in the more artistic sector is not going so well after all. The successor to Pina, which should prove that 3D has a future in arthouse theatres too, is yet to be seen. Although Hugo possibly the exception that proves the rule.
Leo Bankersen
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