Air Bubbles

In the first of the short film restorations from 35mm prints by La Cineteca del Friuli streamed in the online part of the 40th Pordenone Silent Film Festival and as introduced by film preservationist, historian and one of the festival's founders, Paolo Cherchi Usai, "Soap Bubbles" follows the popular early cinema genres of the mischievous boy and the prank-punitive plot established as far back as at least the Lumière "L'Arroseur Arrosé" (1895). Usai suggests a debt to the book "Heart: A School-Boy's Journal" by Edmondo de Amicis, as well. Regardless, in this one, the boy learns his lesson from nested stories visually depicted within bubbles, as from the kit that he stole from another child, of what will tragically happen to his mother if he continues in his errant ways. If you think concern for kids not respecting their elders is a new phenomenon of this or that generation, here's evidence to the contrary; it's been a thing for a while.

Besides a nested narrative, the matte work for the bubble visions isn't bad, and there seems to be some dolly work in a zoom-in-like effect as the visions appear. Dolly shots had been around for a while, but the Italian epic "Cabiria" (1914) is often credited with popularizing them. Yet, here's another Italian film from 1911 seemingly featuring them, or it could be a matter of bringing objects towards the camera, as Georges Méliès is reported to have done, as with the landing in the Moon's eye gag in "A Trip to the Moon" (1902).