Category: SOUTHEAST ASIA & INDONESIA

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Á Travers la Cochinchine et le Cambodge [Through Cochinchina and Cambodia] (1925) – Brut and Lejards

The Mnong “have a profound artistic sense which comes through in their warrior dances” – ‘À travers la Cochinchine et le Cambodge’ (1925) – Brut and Lejards

25 mins. , b&w, silent, intertitles in French.

Production : Pathé

Source : Gaumont-Pathé Archives, PR 1925 53 34

This is an extended reportage film, which, as the title suggests proceeds from Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), through what is now central Vietnam and into Cambodia. Although it is essentially a ‘road movie’, it includes a number of brief scenes of ethnographic interest en route.

These include a funeral procession in Saigon, some elegant ‘warrior’ dances, albeit performed for the camera in a park or garden, by some Mnong men (referred to, as was conventional at the time, as Moï, a pejorative term meaning ‘savage’ in Vietnamese), a rural pottery-making sequence, and in Phnom Penh, a public festivity, an extraordinary dragon-boat race on the Mekong, and finally, a performance by the celebrated dancers of the Royal Ballet.

This is a remarkably well-shot film, which apart from one or two examples of  ‘crossing the line’, features a sophisticated understanding of film grammar, including cuts from wide to close, beautifully framed establishing shots, a very well-executed tilt up a vast staircase at the Angkor Wat temple and many clever uses of natural light and shadow. Some subtle cross fades have also been added at post-production.

One of the cameramen, Lejards, would appear to be the same operator who shot a number of well made short films in West Africa in the early 1920s.

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Incineration de S.M. Sisowath, roi de Cambodge, L’ [The Cremation of H.M. Sisowath, King of Cambodia] (1928) – Anon

A Buddhist monk recites prayers before the funeral urn – ‘The Cremation of H.M. Sisowath, King of Cambodia’ (1928)

15:07, b&w (tinted sepia), silent, with French intertitles

Production : Pathé-Revue

Source : Gaumont-Pathé archives

A very well-made but anonymous film that follows the elaborate series of ceremonies were involved in the funeral rites of Sisowath, the King of Cambodia.

The intertitles explain that after the body of the deceased king has been  lying in state for seven months in a golden urn in the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh, the rites associated with his cremation should bring public mourning to an end, and even be a cause for celebration since the deceased king’s spirit will be ‘rejoining Buddha in paradise’.

The film then shows the golden urn being transported to the royal crematorium, followed by the new king, Sisowath’s son, Monivong, and vast crowds, including columns of elephants. Here the urn remains for another seven days while monks recite prayers.

The flesh of the corpse is then carefully separated from the bones and taken to the Silver Pagoda to be cremated in the presence of Monivong and his invitées, who appear to include some French officials. The camera does not follow the separation of flesh and bones, but it does offer a close up of a small open container where the flesh is smouldering.  While ‘the fire does its work’, as the intertitles put it, outside the crowd prays and musicians play sacred music.

The bones are then cremated in turn in a more public ceremony and the following day, again accompanied by his invitées, Monivong washes the ashes and then carries them down to the Mekong, where they are carried out in a canoe to be  thrown into middle of  ‘the sacred River’, thereby liberating the former king from all his earthly attachments.

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Legong – Dance of the Virgins. A Story of the South Seas (1935) – dir. Henry de la Falaise

Legong – Dance of the Virgins (1935) – dir. Henry de la Falaise

56 mins., colour, inter titles in English for dialogue, extra-diegetic music

Production : Bennett Pictures Corp. (the company of De la Falaise’s wife, the actress Constance Bennett)

Source : distributed in DVD by Milestone and Les Films du paradox. There are also many extracts, usually unacknowledged, on YouTube.

An ethnodrama set in Bali and built around a central story about the competition between the beautiful young ‘maid’ Poutou and her not-quite-so-beautiful half-sister, Saplak, for the love of Nyong, a handsome young man who has arrived from the north of the island.

After making her feelings known to Nyongo, albeit non-verbally, Poutou and her father await his marriage proposal.  However, Nyong chances upon Saplak bathing in a pool, is entranced by her beauty and proposes to run away with her instead. Finding the loss of face unbearable, Poutou throws herself from a high bridge and the final part of the film follows her cremation.

The story itself is very lame, the characterisation shallow, the music often execrable and there is much that is simply too good to be true about the setting. However, the cast were all local Balinese, including the principal characters, and there are many exquisitely filmed sequences, shot in Technicolor,  of everyday life in the market and in the streets, but also of the ceremonial events.

These include the same tjalonarang ceremony that is shown in Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson’s Trance and Dance in Bali, in which Rangda the Witch is pitted against Barong the Dragon. The location looks so similar that one wonders whether it might even be the same place, with some of the same participants.

The film culminates in two sequences that feature some remarkable dancing. The first is of the djanger, in which, apart from the female principal, all the participants are seated, while the second is of the legong, performed by the two principal female characters, Poutou and Saplak. The cremation sequence over the last five minutes, which is also spectacular,  appears to have been for the most part a genuine event rather than one performed only for the film.

The film was shot in 1933 and released in 1935 in various different versions. In the US version, the close ups of naked breasted women were removed by the censor, while in the British version scenes with even the slightest suggestion of violence were cut. The Milestone/ Les Films du paradox DVD is based on a restored version of the film that reincorporates the parts cut by the censors.

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Danse javanaise [Javanese Dance], Jongleur javanais [Javanese Juggler], Lutteurs javanais [Javanese Wrestlers] (1896) – Alexandre Promio

Javanese dancers performing in Crystal Palace park, July-August 1896 – Lumière ‘view’ shot by Alexandre Promio

three short films, all less than a minute, b&w, silent.

Production :  Lumière, catalogue nos. 30, 53, 56

Content :  these ‘views’, as the Lumière short films were known, were shot in the Crystal Palace park at Sydenham, south London, and show members of a Javanese performance troupe performing for the camera, with their fellow performers as an audience.

They were shot by the Italian-born cameraman, Alexandre Promio, while he was on a visit to London in July and August 1896. Promio was responsible for at least a quarter of the total number of 1428 ‘views’ that the Lumière company produced.

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Chez les Muruts, peuplade sauvage du nord de Bornéo [Among the Muruts, a Savage Tribe of north Borneo] (1911) – Anon

6:46 mins., b&w (tinted?), silent with English inter titles

Production : Pathé Frères, production no. 4616

Source : CNC at the BnF

Background : the Murut are an ethnic group who  live widely distributed across the northern part of the island of Borneo, mostly in the Malaysian state of Sabah in the extreme northwest, but also in neighbouring parts of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, in Brunei and the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan.

Traditionally, they lived in hilltop long houses, were slash and burn cultivators and practiced headhunting. They were renowned also for their body tattoos.

Although this appears in the Pathé Frères catalogue, given the remoteness of the region, rather than send their own operator, it is possible that they bought this film from the Charles Urban Trading Company which sent cinematographer Harold Lomas (c.1873-1926) there on three occasions: in 1903, 1904 and 1908. The fact that the intertitles are in English lends greater credence to this possibility.

Lomas’s expeditions were paid for by the British North Borneo Company, a trading company which administered the then-colony of North Borneo. In 1915, led by a charismatic figure claiming supernatural powers, the Murut attacked the offices of the company.

Content: The film itself  is very simple. It is shot from a single static position, though with some variation between wide shots and close-ups. The inter titles are factual and explanatory, for example: “The Muruts live in tribes from fifty to sixty individuals dwelling together in the same hut”.

At first, the subjects pose, obviously ill at ease. A man makes a cigar from leaf. A family climbs into a long house. We see some jaw bones, said to be of animals (but given their history of headhunting, perhaps they are human?). A chief’s grave is shown from a distance. Then they show their weapons.

The film concludes with various dances (which are said to be “diverse and have a certain originality”), on a patch of grass beside a house, to the unheard sound of gongs. Men and women dance in a circle, a young girl plays on a flute with several heads, another girl does a sort of scissor dance between two bamboos operated by two other girls. A man dances alone with a long sword.

In the copy held by the CNC, the film ends in mid-dance, with no end credits, suggesting that originally it may have been longer. The subject matter of the last part of the film provides further evidence that this material may have been filmed by Lomas since the title of one of his films in the Urban catalogue is entitled, Head-Hunters of Borneo at their Peace and War Dances (1903).

Text: McKernan 2013: 51-52.

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Siam Court Dancers/ Siam Street Dancers of Bangkok (c.1925) – Anon

6 mins. (Court Dancers), 3 mins. (Street Dancers), b&w, silent.

Source : NAFC, catalogue no. AS-89.2.4.

A film in two parts, but involving some of the same dancers. Although the film is held within the Ananda Coomaraswamy Collection in the NAFC, the quality of both the stock and the shooting seems to be rather better than in the films that Ananda Coomaraswamy shot himself. This suggests that this may be a film that Coomaraswamy bought in, or alternatively, asked a professional cameraperson to shoot.

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Burma: pwe festival (c.1925) – Ananda Coomaraswamy (?)

6 mins., b&w, silent (English intertitles)

Source : NAFC, Film no. AS-89.2.6.

This films documents the pwe festival that takes place on the occasion of the dedication of a house or a monastery in Myanmar (formerly Burma). The dancers, who are young girls, are accompanied by musicians playing drums, xylophones and flutes.

Tacked onto the end of the performance in the film, there is another section, preceded by a title simply saying ‘Burma’, which consists of a series of poor quality shots of day-to-day life in Pagan, the old Burmese capital.

This film forms part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection,  but there is no introductory title specifically indicating that Ananda Coomaraswamy himself shot it, as was the case with a number of other films in the collection. However, there are certain stylistic similarities, not least the lengthy explanatory inter title at the beginning of the film, as well as the highly descriptive wide-angle camera framing. On the other hand, the technical quality of the image is rather better than in many of the earlier Coomaraswamy films.

If Coomaraswamy did make this film, he would have done so on his second Asian tour, so either he had improved his technique by then or perhaps he asked someone more experienced or skilled to shoot it for him.

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Danseuses de S.M. Sisowath, roi de Cambodge, Les [The Dancers of H.M. Sisowath, King of Cambodia] (c.1925) – Anon

Female dancer dressed as a male character (as indicated by the raised epaulette) – ‘Les danseuses de S.M. Sisowath, roi de Cambodge’ (1920s) – Anon

6:18 mins., b&w, silent.

Production : ICF (Indochine Cinémas et Film), the French colonial government film production company

Source : this film can be viewed here. It is also held by the NAFC, where the catalogue number is AS-89.2.12

This film shows performances by the Royal Ballet of Cambodia – traditionally composed almost exclusively of female dancers – shot in three different locations: outside in a tropical garden, then on a roof terrace, finally inside what appears to be a palace room with mirrors (one shot shows the camerman reflected in the mirror, busily turning the handle of his camera).

This is a much more substantial corps de ballet than in the Coomaraswamy films, and the dancers are accompanied by a considerable number of musicians with xylophones. The quality of the film production suggests professional involvement: in the latter part of the film, there are many striking close-up shots of  hands, feet, costumes, faces. However, while being technically superior to the Coomaraswamy films, this film is in some ways less interesting from an ethnographic point of view since it does not follow the performance of particular legends.

On the YouTube site where this film is available, it is proposed that it was made in the ‘early 1900s’, which may be  influenced by the fact that King Sisowath’s Royal Ballet performed at a colonial exhibition in Marseilles in 1901. However, the location is clearly in Cambodia, and is probably the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, while the quality of both the film stock and the shooting suggests a much later date, though certainly before 1927, since Sisowath died in that year.

Although there are no credits, it is possible that the film was shot by Brut and/or Lejards, two skilled Pathé cameramen who were in Phnom Penh around this time while shooting À travers Cochonchine et Cambodge, an extended reportage film released in 1925. This also features a very well executed sequence of the Royal Ballet dancers.

For all these reasons, the 1925 date suggested in the NAFC catalogue seems appropriate.

The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here.

 

 

 

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Cambodian Dramatic Dances: the Story of Prince Chey Chet (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy

The giant Seng Hum – a character in ‘Cambodian Dramatic Dances: the Story of Prince Chet Chey’ (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy

12:14 mins., b&w, silent.

Source : this film can be viewed here. It can also be seen as part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection at the NAFC, where it is available as part of the film AS-89.2.1 Cambodian Dramatic Dances. This also includes a dance based on the legend of Prea Somut and his elopement with Princess Butsumali, described here.

This film shows a performance by the Royal Cambodian Ballet, apparently in the grounds of the Angkor Wat temple complex, of the legend of Prince Chey Chet and the quarrel between his jealous wives. The performers are from a hereditary cast of dancers and as was customary, they are all prepubescent girls, even those performing the male roles. The troupe is relatively few in number, and there is only one accompanying xylophone player, indicating that this was probably put on specifically for Ananda Coomaraswamy.

The film begins with a lengthy inter title explaining the context of the film with the aid of a series of stills of some of the performers. A seccond, shorter inter title, apparently produced on a typewriter, reveals that ‘the photography’ was by Ananda Coomaraswamy himself. The film then follows the story of the legend with the aid of further inter titles produced on a typewriter. The quality of the cinematography is uneven, with many jump cuts, but the film still manages to capture the grace of the dancers and the general flavour of the story.

This is one of a series of films that Coomaraswamy made in the course of a trip around various Asian countries accompanied by his then lover and later wife, the dancer Stella Bloch, an American of Polish-Jewish heritage.

The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here

 

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Cambodian Dramatic Dances: Prea Somut and Princess Butsumali (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy

 

Princess Butsumali and Prea Somut resolve to elope – ‘Cambodian Dramatic Dances’ (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy

9 mins., b&w, silent.

Source : this film can be viewed on the web here. It can also be seen as part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection at the NAFC,  where it is available as part of the film AS-89.2.1 Cambodian Dramatic Dances, which also includes a dance based on the legend of Prince Chey Chet and the jealousy between his two wives, described here.

This film shows a performance by the Royal Cambodian Ballet – evidently in the grounds of the ancient palace of Angkor Wat – of the legend of the elopement of Prea Somut with the Princess Bustumali. The performers are from a hereditary cast of dancers and as was customary, they are all prepubescent girls, even those performing the male roles. This appears to be an informal performance put on at the request of the filmmaker, Ananda Coomoraswamy : the dancers are relatively few in number and there is only one player of an accompanying xylophone.

The film was shot by Coomaraswamy himself, as the opening titles reveal. Though the resolution of the image is a little murky, the technical quality is reasonable for the period, with a variety of shots. It follows the story of the legend with the aid of inter titles which have clearly been produced on a typewriter.

This is one of a series of films that Coomaraswamy made in the course of a trip around various Asian countries accompanied by his then lover and later wife, the dancer Stella Bloch, an American of Polish-Jewish heritage.

The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here.

 

 

 

© 2018 Paul Henley