L'île de Pâques

The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert (who also did the narration), shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock. (Grant McCall)

• John FernhoutDirector · Director of Photography
• Henri StorckDirector · Editor

Release date

May 24, 1935

Status

Released

Original language

French

Runtime

23m

Genres

Documentary

• 

  Land Without Bread

  1933

• 

  The Sixth Side of the Pentagon

  1968

• 

  Hakob Hovnatanyan

  1967

• 

  Corral

  1954

• Fanalysis

  2002

• 

  Salvador Dalí at Work

  1964

• 

  Playgirl Models

  1963

• 

  Arabian Coffee

  1968

• Under a Bridge

  1974

• 

  Thaumatropes

  1984

• 

  Typhoon Tamara

  1986

• 

  Daybreak Express

  1957