Narren-Grappen (Jester’s Joke) / 1908

two for one

by Douglas Messerli

 

Narren-Grappen (Jester’s Joke) / 1908

 

The Netherlands film of 1908, Narren-Grappen (Jester’s Joke), does not name a director, so we have to presume whoever was behind this short film was the cinematographer who was also able to create some rather special effects that, as one commentator suggests, were 80 years ahead of their time. But then, Georges Méliès had delighted his audiences with some quite astounding visual wonders even earlier.

      This 5.41-minute work features a female trickster, the Jester of the title, who with a puff of her cigarette can seemingly produce objects and even a dog.

       Finally, however, she lays aside her cigarette and, by performing a cartwheel, turns her entire body into a spinning gyre, even, at the end of her exercises, spinning about her own face.

 

     With simply a wave of her hand, moreover, she also creates a Pierrot and his Columbine. But in this case the Pierrot seems, at first, indifferent to the beauty of the female; that is, until the Jester pulls yet a second Pierrot out of the first, suggesting that the male was totally self-satisfied with another male within. Now both clowns, seated on either side of Columbine, begin to court her, attempting to hold her hand, but instead discovering that hand to be the other male’s.

 

    Soon they begin to quarrel and battle—the two of them suddenly outfitted with boxing gloves—over the female prize. At first they do more hugging but slugging, but gradually trick one another to achieve solid blows upon their cheeks. But soon in their sparring they merge bodies once again, the now single male shyly trying to claim Columbine as his prize. The Jester forces him to disappear through a slat in the bench upon with the three had previously sat.

     The Jester now clearly has other plans for her female creation, sitting down beside her on the bench and inching closer and closer, before, as the two stand, magically ridding the scene of the bench and collapsing her now treasured Columbine into a small box.

     In a new space, signified by a reddish tint she pours out Columbine from the box, twirls her around a couple of times and realizes she is not happy with the way her new woman friend is dressed. With another wave of her hand, she puts a long gown upon the girl and twirls her around for a moment as the new Columbine is also transformed into her earlier guise. The Jester seems absolutely pleased with the results, now having two female companions in one.

Los Angeles, April 16, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2022).