Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola

A pre-WW1 4-part serial packaged as a feature that must have blown minds back in 1913. Director Marcel Perez plays the title character, an adventurer raised on a desert island by apes with tails. It's a bit vague on narrative detail at times, but makes up for it with some audacious ideas. The climactic hot air balloon battle still packs a wallop.

As the title of this film implies, "Le Avventure Straordinarissime Di Saturnino Farandola" or "The Very Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul" is an extraordinarily astonishing not to mention surprising silent Italian film.

It has nothing in common with the well-known and highly reputed Italian film productions of the early years, that is to say, melodramas or costume epic films. On the contrary, "Le Avventure…" has evident influences from Herr Mélies or Herr Chomón in its characteristics in that it is an absurd, witty and funny fantastic film.

The film is based on a novel written by Herr Albert Robida with a long title that reads: "Voyage Très Extraordinaires De Saturnin Farandoul Dans Les 5 ou 6 Parties Du Monde Et Dans Tous Les Pays Connus Et Même Inconnus De M. Jules Verne" (it seems that once you have read such a long title, you have already read half the novel…). It was directed and starred by the unknown Herr Marcel Fabre, whose real name was Herr Marcel Fernández Pérez.

The film tells the adventures of Saturnino Farandola, the only surviving of a shipwreck when he was a baby (his father and mother saving him at the cost of their lives). He arrives to a strange island inhabited exclusively by monkeys. Those animals raise him for years but when they see that as time goes by the infant doesn't have a tail, they decide to ignore him. Humiliated, Saturnino leaves the island in a raft and is rescued by a boat. There he will learn to speak and to behave properly, becoming an officer. The boat will be attacked by pirates and from then Saturnino will live one strange adventure after another (his fiancée will be eaten by a whale, he will have to search for a white elephant, he will join the North America Milligan army against those South Milligan forces or he will experience air balloon battle, etc…) Along the way he will visit many countries (Oceania, Siam, Amerika) and finally to return to the place of his origins, the monkey island.

As this German Count said before, the film it is surprisingly enjoyable, and even funny for a Teutonic aristocrat. Thanks to the imagination and inventiveness displayed on the screen, an incessant show of the most bizarre adventures and situations that are filmed with a static camera but that by no means cause the film to lack rhythm because of its narrative vitality.

Remarkable are the balloon battle and the aquatic scenes, plainly influenced by Mélies, in where Herr Fabre displays his ingenious and imagination at his best. Wonderful and fantastic images are included in an excellent film that deserve to being known and enjoyed by silent film connoisseurs.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must live strange adventures in the soirée of tonight.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

Early feature length films are either heavy melodramas or grandiose epics. Italian films from the 10s are better known as epics about the roman empire. Well this one stands out; it's a surreal, plot less crazy adventure through the world featuring mad pirates, gigantic sea monsters, exotic Chinese people, American warriors and even a hot air balloon war (remember, this is before WWI)! The kind of stuff you'd expect to read from a suddenly mad Jules Verne, without any scientific precision though.

I expected this film a the theoretical "What if Méliès had made a feature-length film?". But this film does not have the charm of Méliès had ten years before this. It's way less poetic though certainly imaginative. It's more adventure oriented, and stands on it's own. But I'd like to think that this film, which may have even been a bit dated in 1913, wasn't made seriously at all. You'll certainly laugh just like people did way back in 1913, and that's arguably how the director intended it. It's camp fun, and could be the most archaic feature-length film I've even seen.