Le bolle di sapone

Le bolle di sapone

(Soap Bubbles)

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[Brendan C. Burchill]

There are two films on the Europa website that bear the English titles "Soap Bubbles": one is charming Georges Melies film of 1906; the other is this film, La bolle di sapone, a short Italian movie of 1911. My comments here refer only to the Italian film, which has its own cleverness and charm.

"Soap Bubbles" is a short morality play about a mischevious little boy who is annoyance to his mother, the police, and at least one unfortunate older woman. Through the use of special effects, the young boy is able to visualize the suffering he has caused his mother as a series of visions within three soap bubbles. By the end of the film, the young boy has grown repentant: he goes back to the attic room where he and his mother lives and prepares to ask her forgiveness. This morality tale encourages young people to consider the effects of their misbehavior on their parents and neighbors. It is certainly not a bad message to relay to all age groups, in all periods of time!

Above and beyond the message, the film has certain artistic qualities that I think are worth noting. It seems to me that "Soap Bubbles" is a film divided between two different eras in film history. On the one hand, it leans heavily upon situations and devises from the early cinema of attractions. The depiction of a young boy's pranks was something frequently done in the silent movies of Edwin S. Porter, the American filmmaker, in the first decade of the twentieth century. The idea of filming the boy's visions through an aperture shaped like a soap bubble gives those scenes a novel effect, not unlike the apertures used in Pathe Freres' "Through a Keyhole" (1901), G. A. Smith's "As Seen Through a Telescope" (1901), and Porter's "Fireside Reminiscences" (1908). These "attractions" give the film the air of an old storybook or illustrated poster. The effect is very charming.

On the other hand, "Soap Bubbles" is also an example of narrative filmmaking. It shows the influence of early filmmakers who tried to build stories around the changing mental and emotional states of a central character. For instance, the boy's visions are essentially dream sequences. In 1911, both European and American filmmakers were using the dream sequence to explain changes in a character's personality or as a door to let an audience into the character's mind. As short as "Soap Bubbles" is, the filmmakers' use of the dream sequence as a way to facilitate character development (ie. to show the boy's growing remorse)is as psychological as the similar scene in the Mary Pickford short film "The Dream," which was also released in 1911.

"Soap Bubbles" is a fine film with a solid message for young people and an interesting artistic sensibility behind its creation.

[Federica]

I loved this short film. Being Italian, I could read the actors' lips and understand some of the words they were saying. The acting style is also very interesting: the mother is very dramatic, while the kids are more natural, particularly in the scene of the slap. It reminded me a little of a book my father used to read to us kids, many years ago, "Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca", even though in the book the kid's pranks convey a subversive meaning which was subtly praised by the author.