Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The best thing about this movie is how short it is, the second best is the over the top, clown like performance by Albert Dieudonné as Dr. Tube. After that, naming any quality would be stretching it. There's barely a plot at all. Dr. Tube invents a powder that distorts the reality/vision of the people using it. He tries it on himself and others. It wears off after they settle down, and the it's over.As most commenters point out, it is most likely made solely to experiment with distortion of the picture, making it look like a magic mirror. The warping effect might have been a bit fun then, but now, a hundred years later, it's only annoying. It's sad though, because I'm sure a movie like this could have been a cult film amongst drug users, as it does feature a "trip", but it's just not interesting enough. Except as a piece of film history.

I don't know if 11 minutes are sufficient enough to do wonderful things, save a life or find happiness, therefore I can't be much stressed about seeing this nonsense experience. I won't say I wasted my time but something was wasted on the way. I couldn't feel a thing over it, not a single burst of joy or amazement, not a tear was shed. I got nothing from here except maybe, maybe some ideas about the little importance this might have had with future generations when it comes to illustrate bad trips with drugs. "La Folie du Docteur Tube" tells about a doctor making some experiments with a powerful drug. Mr. Abel Gance provides us bizarre and twisted images, everything is completely modified, blurry and enlarged followed by the psychodelics sounds of Karlheinz Stockhausen - the latter came from a remastered version released a few years ago.So, Gance was testing - just like the doctor in the movie - new ways to compose images, editing techniques and all. I'm fine with that. But where's the high purpose? Where's the entertainment or the higher knowledge? It's so empty and dull you watch this with a straight face thinking "Uh huh, so...? Oh that was it? What's the big deal?". I'm giving two stars. Why? Here's a little anecdote to connect with and a good answer to such question. A known director while making his earliest films at college asked his master, the great John Houseman, about his thoughts on his thesis film. Houseman, who had seen plenty of those that day and none of them moved him, replied to the young filmmaker: "Well, at least it didn't made me sleep". Case closed. 2/10

Folie du Docteur Tube, La (1915) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Strange, early French film from director Abel Gance has a mad scientist creating some sort of white powder, which he, his dog, his assistant and a couple others take and then start to see strange objects. I'm really not sure if the white powder is suppose to be something like cocaine but that's the impression I got and I guess I'd go even further as to say this is an early "strange trip" type of film. Apparently the only reason this was made was so that Gance could try new things with the camera. The film has all sorts of strange images, the type of stuff you'd expect to see in a funhouse. Various tricks are done with mirrors in order to make things appear smaller or out of shape. The film certainly has a surreal quality to it and I respect the attempt to do something new but in the end the film feels long even at only eleven-minutes.

'La Folie du Docteur Tube' only exists to try some new techniques. The story tells of a professor in a lab inventing a weird powder that disfigures living creatures. First he tries it on an animal, then on himself and the boy that helps him. In a parallel story we see men approaching two women. The women want to fresh up before going on something like a date and they also end up covered in the professor's powder. With make-up they try to conceal their disfigurement but lucky for them the two men below the window are also covered with the powder. In the end everything turns up back to normal where they share a drink.I liked Albert Dieudonné who plays the professor. His way of acting is actually quite funny. The story itself is not interesting at all, only an excuse for director Abel Gance (who would go and make the great 'Napoléon') to use trick mirrors to distort the picture. He plays this trick too long; after a minute we understand what he wants to show us but he keeps things like that for five minutes more. I am glad to have seen it since it comes from an important figure in the cinema, but that would be about the only reason to recommend it.