Rien n’est impossible à l’homme (Nothing Is Impossible to Man)

Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date:  1910
Rating: ★★
Review:

Émile Cohl was an extremely prolific animation artist, virtually responsible for almost the world’s complete animation output of 1908-1910. Thus it doesn’t come as a surprise that not all his films are masterpieces.

For example, ‘Rien n’est impossible à l’homme’ is a rather disjointed gag film about what man can do nowadays. The most interesting scene is the first one, in which we watch a live action street scene from above (supposedly from an airplane, but the camera remains static throughout). Other scenes use cut-out animation to show a diver smoking at the bottom of the sea, or a musician making an obelisk cry.

None of the gags are remotely funny, and the whole film feels like a garbage bag of unrelated gag material, making watching the short a rather tiresome experience.

Watch ‘Rien n’est impossible à l’homme’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Rien n’est impossible à l’homme’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’