Tiny Sun-bathers

This short film is included on a DVD collection entitled " Short #9: Trust"--a mediocre (at best) collection of short films. This particular short is very short and only lasts about two minutes, so it's hard to review it. It is some sort of documentary from China in the 1960s about the healthful effects of the sun on some very young children who are sunbathing in synchronization. All this is stock footage. However, someone in 1998 took the film, gave it an English narration and hand-painted portions of the sepia-toned stock. This sort of coloring was relatively common around 1900-1910 (Georges Méliès had many of his early films beautifully hand-colored) and was usually done quite well. However, with TINY SUN-BATHERS it was done sloppily--with loud colors slapped onto the cels. Considering it was done before and done better, I really can't recommend this film.

This film doesn't intend to be compared to Méliès films.

It's just, as Jacqueline Aubenas wrote in the book "100 years of belgian animation" a film jacking.

The english voice was on the original footage and reveals how chinese propaganda was strong at that time.

Thats the reason why the two director of this film enjoyed making a new version of this footage to question the audience on what pictures can means.