Pleograph // VR movie

2022 marks the 120th anniversary of the film credited to be the first Polish feature productions - "The Return of the Tipsificator" (to use a word from the late 19th century, or "The Return of the Carouser/Reveller" if one wants to use a more modern word; "Powrót Birbanta" in Polish) - and "The Adventures of the Cab driver", created by Kazimierz Prószyński with the help of a specially constructed device called a biopleograph (an improved version of the pleograph, which was created before invention of the cinematograph by the Lumière brothers).
The film "Pleograph" in VR technology is not only an attempt to reconstruct a simple film made by Prószyński in 1902 - it is also a story about telling a story. We observe Kazimierz Prószyński (Filip Urbanke) shooting his film with the help of an unusual machine of his own design. The viewer watches not only the "Return of the Tipsificator" itself in the VR version, but also the process of the creating of that particular picture. However, that's not all - "Pleograph" is really a story within a story, and the viewer sees that he is actually ... on the set of a contemporary historical production dedicated to our carouser (Jędrzej Taranek), and the historical advisor (Jakub Kamieński) on the set has a few doubts!
The original "Return of the Tipsificator" has been lost probably during the Second World War, however it is remembered thanks to Bolesław Lewicki's account of the show of this production in 1938: "Day, part of the street: against the backdrop of a tenement house (part of it with the entrance gate up to the first floor), pavement. In front of the gate, a watchman in an apron sweeps the pavement. A horse-drawn carriage approaches from the right, stops in front of the gate. In a cab, sprawled on the seat of a young man in a top hat and tailcoat visible from under a black cape. The young man is visually drunk because he can't even stand up. Cab driver and the watchman help him in getting out of the cab. Then the carouser, with the help of the watchman, goes into the house".

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P R O M O S M 😌