This is, by far, Jean Renoir's oddest film: a surreal, sci-fi/musical short which was originally accompanied by a specially-composed score but whose print on the DVD itself, bafflingly, features no underscoring whatsoever. Incongruously enough, the film apparently grew out of Renoir's desire to utilize footage left over from NANA (1926)!
Again, we find Renoir's wife at the time Catherine Hessling in a major role; here, she is a sexy dancer from the future who teaches a sophisticated negro explorer(!) the Charleston dance (at which he eventually proves himself remarkably adept). It is very hard to believe now that Hessling's dancing caused quite a stir at the time but there you go. Unfortunately, the film doesn't add up to much and there's practically nothing of the traditional Renoir on display. Besides, its premise isn't enough to sustain even the film's two-reel length, with the protracted dance sequence itself, filmed at a variety of speeds, emerging as a hollow exercise in style.
For what it's worth, other characters appearing in the film include a (fake-looking) monkey who is Hessling's sole companion on the seemingly deserted place the coloured astronaut lands on and, for no apparent reason, a group of grinning angels (among them Renoir himself)! The film's best gag is one that would soon become a staple of animation: at one point, Hessling draws a telephone on a wall and this immediately materializes into the real thing.
Again, we find Renoir's wife at the time Catherine Hessling in a major role; here, she is a sexy dancer from the future who teaches a sophisticated negro explorer(!) the Charleston dance (at which he eventually proves himself remarkably adept). It is very hard to believe now that Hessling's dancing caused quite a stir at the time but there you go. Unfortunately, the film doesn't add up to much and there's practically nothing of the traditional Renoir on display. Besides, its premise isn't enough to sustain even the film's two-reel length, with the protracted dance sequence itself, filmed at a variety of speeds, emerging as a hollow exercise in style.
For what it's worth, other characters appearing in the film include a (fake-looking) monkey who is Hessling's sole companion on the seemingly deserted place the coloured astronaut lands on and, for no apparent reason, a group of grinning angels (among them Renoir himself)! The film's best gag is one that would soon become a staple of animation: at one point, Hessling draws a telephone on a wall and this immediately materializes into the real thing.