The Story of Minna Claessens

Him – Her – and what’s in between. A short experimental silent fiction film shot entirely on 16mm BW and colour film made in the tradition of classic silent-era filmmaking.

This film is a story from the Mahabharatam where Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas, resists the advances of Keechaka, a lustful general in the court of King Virata. The confrontation leads to Keechaka's death, highlighting Draupadi's resilience during the Pandavas' exile.

During a game of hide and seek, a new bride hides in a chest and remains undiscovered until a strange visitation thirty years later.

Against the backdrop of New York City of the early 1850s, a young woman -- naively seeking to win the love she reads about in the romance novels she devours -- finds one prospect in an earnest denizen of the Bowery, and another in an elegant young aristocrat. Focusing on the bygone era's fashions, the novelty of the bicycle-built-for-two, and an inventor's quest for the horseless carriage, the film gently stirs the audiences' nostalgia for simpler times.

Caught off-guard by Indian mutineers, a British soldier saves his last bullet for his daughter, lest she be taken.

Attracted by his wealth, avaricious Germaine marries D'Artois, then leaves him for a more sophisticated man. D'Artois retaliates by moving to the city and learning the proper social graces. His new life style proves to be too expensive for him, and at the end he is left with nothing but one suit of evening clothes and his now contrite wife.

Two young men serving at the front. One comes from a good family, the other's family is poor. But the sister of the middle-class son falls in love with his poor comrade when he returns home for Christmas.

A young woman becomes infatuated with the leading man of a traveling theatrical troupe. She sneaks away to join him in the next town, but her father forces her to return home...

This charming short film was shot in the Camargue, probably in the same place where Jean Durand filmed his cowboy movies. The plot is very simple. A guardian falls in love with a Parisian. Desperate, he commits suicide when she returns to the capital. But, as always with Perret, we appreciate the framing, the skilful use of the exteriors and the documentary side of life of the time. We see the young Arlesianas in traditional dress go out to collect almonds and return with their baskets to the city. The actor in the role of the guardian overreacts, imitating bombastic despair. But the finale, in which he rides a horse through the waves to find the rest of death, preserves its charm intact. Perret knows how to set the rhythm of a sequence and give it the necessary atmosphere.