Superstition andalouse (1912) User Reviews

Which one will Pedro choose?

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 10 September 2020]

"Superstition Andalouse" is a film by Segundo de Chomón that was originally hand-colored (frame by frame) but the copy I found on YouTube was so faded that nearly all the color was gone...with just a hint of color.

The story involves Juanita who refuses to give a tip to a Gypsy*. Being an evil Gypsy, she gets her friends and they decide to teach the lady a lesson by kidnapping her Pedro! And, this woman ALSO wants Pedro for her very own!

This story is interesting to see when you compare it to the filmmaker's earlier work. The early films were set inside his studio but here the setting is mostly outdoors and it makes for a much nicer looking movie. And, although ten minutes seems awfully short today, back in the day that was pretty typical. Also, the color is nice to look at even if it isn't perfect. Overall, a well made film for the era and worth your time if you love old silents...or if you would like to see some bizarre camerawork inside the Gypsy lair! See the film...you'll see what I mean.

*I am NOT being bigot here. I know that these people are generally referred to as the Roma or Romani these days and they are not evil thieves...but this was the prevailing sentiment back in the day and the film is anything but politically correct!

Trapped in the Mazes of Imagination

[boblipton · 7/10 · 7 May 2010]

This elaborately colored one-reeler is available, as I write this, for viewing on Youtube. It shows Segundo de Chomon adapting to the changes in film story telling -- a lot better than his producers, who put a few too many titles in, disrupting the flow of imagination as Juanita daydreams of the increasingly elaborate revenge that a gypsy girl will bring down on her boyfriend because she has not let him give her alms.

This piece is told in multiple scenes, in an increasingly artificial world. The venue shifts from a realistic courtyard to a wild, stagebound prison in which various stage monsters appear. In some ways this hearkens backwards to half a dozen years earlier -- a couple of lifetimes in the evolution of cinema at his point! -- when de Chomon was Pathe's lead director in driving Georges Melies out of business. I am impressed by his attempts to combine the old and new film grammars: the naturalistic new grammar and the surrealistic old grammar in the depths of daydream. But the effect is disrupted by the occasional titles, informing us, for example that "the nightmare continues." Ignore them if you can.

Superstiotion andalouse review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 24 June 2020]

The type of magic illusion movies with which Segundo De Chomon had competed with Georges Melies for so long had run their course by 1912. But while Melies found it impossible to adapt, De Chomon saw ways to incorporate the fantastic elements of his work into more straightforward narratives. Here, a peasant girl imagines the revenge a gypsy might wreak on her boyfriend after an altercation, and her fantasy grows increasingly bizarre as the plot develops. The story is engaging, and the early colour process surprisingly good.

Up-to-Date Chomón

[Tornado_Sam · 16 February 2018]

"Superstition Andalouse" doesn't really seem at all like a film you'd be seeing from Segundo de Chomón, the Spanish filmmaker hired to beat Méliès at trick films. Normally, the majority of his shorts were all gimmick movies, there was rarely an attempt to tell a story, and the story there sometimes was was all special effects based. The narrative for this short is pretty complex for a 1912 film, and it's also pretty long for a film of that time. Ten minutes was considered full-length by 1912.

The film begins with a man (Pedro) and a woman (Juanita) sitting at an outdoor cafe. A gypsy--who totally overacts in her role--shows up to beg for money. Of course they turn her down, and that's only the beginning of this strange film as Juanita begins to daydream about the gypsy's revenge.

Part of what made the story so easy to follow was the subtitles, although being 1912 I shouldn't be too impressed by this. Compared to Chomón's earlier work, it's a huge step up. The shots are closer to the actors, with some closeups when the monsters are shown in the jars, and some medium closeups which look very up-to-date compared to the stagy films of the earlier days of film (no more scene-by-scene storytelling which was typical of Méliès's work, why couldn't Méliès do stuff like this??). The way the camera pulls toward Juanita to before going on to her daydream is particularly interesting and it's notable this is a technique the Edison company used in "The Passer-by" from the same year.

The coloring job is particularly impressive. According to the modern title card at the beginning, the process they used for this was called, and I quote, "Pathécolor ó Cinemacoloris" which is also a method they also used to color Chomón's "Burgos" documentary from the previous year. The color here is less brilliant looking, having been faded by time, but it still has a nice look that adds to the movie. All in all, well done for 1912 and despite absurd overacting, it's something fans of the silent era will want to check out.

Having the right to remain silent

[highclark · 3/10 · 29 August 2011]

Considering how easy it is to find this movie for free on the Internet and that it only takes up about ten minutes to watch, I can recommend fully to any and all to check it out.

Put up against other films of its time it feels light years ahead in its creativity, especially in set design and camera effects. Not that it is at all gimmicky, the effects serve a purpose in its story telling.

However, beyond the imaginative film making, the acting is as what you might expect; overly theatrical and broad. It's just a nice little ditty of a film, nearly a century away from all things CGI.

Good Film That Holds Your Attention

[Michael_Elliott · 22 February 2017]

Superstition andalouse (1912)

*** (out of 4)

Segundo de Chomón directed this interesting French film about a young woman who begins to daydream about what she'd like to happen to the man who harmed her. At just ten-minutes this film is very much worth watching for a number of reasons. The biggest is the fact that it was hand tinted and I must say that the colors look remarkable and it's certainly one of the most impressive jobs I've seen from any film of this era. The other reason to check the film out is that it really does a nice job at letting the visuals tell the story. I found the film to be very interesting as we could zoom into the girl and then "enter" her daydream and then the camera would zoom back out once that was over. I really liked the style that de Chomon brought to the picture and there's no question that it holds your interest throughout the running time.