Un mariage en Auvergne (1909) User Reviews

Dullest Wedding I've Ever Seen

[boblipton · 4/10 · 22 August 2018]

This is a half-reel documentary that shows everything but the marriage itself.... the people going from one location to another, even though the camera stop outside what appears to be the city office where, presumably, the happy couple -- they seem pretty grim about it -- get the license, and also the Church.

Everyone walks around a lot, and the only thing that seems to distinguish the couple and what might be called the official party is that some of them have white ribbons wrapped around their hats. Otherwise people seem rather dour.

I suspect that when the people from Pathe Freres said they'd pay for the party if they could film it, everyone thought Oh boy! the movie people will pay for everything! Then the Pathe people began to interfere, and tell them to wait, and argue with the priest about coming into Church. By the end, it didn't seem like a good idea and this movie seems a lifeless, glum affair.

Here's to the bride and groom!

[EdgarST · 9/10 · 26 April 2024]

A good silent documentary with an anthropological feel. Unlike later films that are considered predecessors of ethnographic cinema, such as "Nanook of the North", where almost everything is fake, from the Eskimo family itself, to the size of the igloo or their daily activities, in this production there is a rigorous austerity in the registry of the events, as it chronicles a rural wedding: the arrival of the groom and guests to the bride's home, the stroll they all take through the streets of the town for the ceremony, and the celebration.

The film is from 1909, so it is unlikely that the peasants were aware of the chain of events that make up the cinematographic process, that is, that a camera was filming them and that the final product would be projected on a screen before an unknown audience. And it does not seem likely to me that Pathé projected the film to them in a town where there was possibly no electricity, so the behavior of the peasants seems normal, without fussing or flirting with the camera.

Furthermore, the film was shot in Auvergne, in central France, a mountainous region of dormant volcanoes, graced by forests, rivers and lakes, with mines of rich metals, which was populated by powerful and fighting tribes. A region of long winters and short summers surely influences the behavior of the inhabitants. Today it is one of the least populated regions in Europe.

I believe that "Un mariage en Auvergne" has high cultural and historical value and, as I was initiated in France in the techniques of anthropological/direct cinema, I understand the purpose of filming the wedding and believe that the result is indeed what was expected.

I was not able to find information about this film.