Underplayed Gems

The Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" (1902)

The Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" poster
Original title
Catastrophe du ballon 'Le pax'
Directed by
Georges Méliès
Genre
documentary film, silent film
Country
France
Runtime
1 min
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 1 voters
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.

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How it feels

This lost silent film from Georges Melies re-enacts a real disaster. It shows the dirigible Pax exploding over Paris in 1902, killing its inventor and mechanic.

stagedhistoricalbriefsilentdocumentary-stylere-enactmentsomberstraightforward

What happens

The Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" (French: Catastrophe du Ballon 'Le Pax') is a 1902 short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 398 in its catalogues. The film is a recreation of a real-life catastrophe that occurred in Paris on 12 May 1902. At 5 a.m. on that day, the Brazilian inventor Augusto Severo de Albuquerque Maranhão and his mechanic, M. Georges Saché, set off in Severo's dirigible, the Pax. They intended to fly from Paris to Issy-les-Moulineaux. However, while the aeronauts were still over Paris at about 400 meters' altitude, the motor stopped and the dirigible exploded. Both Severo and Saché were killed. The Catastrophe of the Balloon "Le Pax" is the second-to-last of Méliès's "reconstructed newsreels" (staged re-enactments of current events), made between The Eruption of Mount Pelee and The Coronation of Edward VII. It is currently presumed lost. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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