Underplayed Gems

The Barber and the Farmer (1897)

The Barber and the Farmer poster
Directed by
Georges Méliès
Genre
comedy film, silent film
Country
France
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

This is a short silent comedy from early cinema. A barber and a farmer get into a series of comic mishaps and mix-ups. The film was lost for decades before being restored.

playfulslapsticklightheartedold-fashionedsimplequickfarcicalsilent-era

What happens

The Barber and the Farmer (French: Figaro et l'Auvergnat) is an 1897 French short silent film by Georges Méliès. It was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 121 in its catalogues. Long presumed lost, a single deteriorated copy of the film was discovered in the late twentieth century, near Paris. The film reel had congealed to the point where the images were stuck together, and two attempts to restore it to a viewable state using chemicals failed. In 2006, the French restoration studio Lobster Films collaborated with a London film laboratory on a restoration incorporating digital techniques. The restoration premiered that year at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.