Entr'acte (1924, short) - Clair's creative experiment in movement

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A later made, pleasant poster for René Clair's Entr'acte

Here's a man, who is shooting a ball. A parrot sits on his hat. Then he jumps from a building. A camel attends his funeral procession along with a lot of men jumping.

Entr'acte is a famous short film by co-writer-director René Clair (The Grand Maneuver/Les Grandes Manoeuvres (1955)), which was created to function as an intermission [entr'acte] piece to be shown between the two acts of a production of the Relâche [canceled] ballet in Paris. Clair wrote it with fellow Dadaist artist Francis Picabia, who wrote the ballet. The film is an example of the Cinéma pur and absolute film movements of the time that occupied especially European filmmakers and French Dadaist artists. You can read more about these movements that scoffed at narratives and conventions in favor of movement and experiments here.
Entr'acte especially plays with slow-motion and super-impositions of up to four images at once. It is an amusing cinematic study in movement. Its interest for each viewer will depend a lot on one's own interest and patience for these sort of things.

Watch a 3-minute clip from the short here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
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[Entr'acte was first shown in the US on December 4 and runs 22 minutes. It was shot in Paris with music by Eric Satie (The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), soundtrack). The short is available as an extra on the Criterion DVD release of Clair's feature À Nous la Liberté (1931). 2,613 IMDb-users have given Entr'acte an average 7.5/10 rating.]

What do you think of Entr'acte?