Emak-Bakia is a 1926

1926 in film

-Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Man Ray

Man Ray

Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...

. Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many filming techniques used by Man Ray, including Rayographs, double exposures, soft focus

Soft focus

In photography, soft focus is a lens flaw, in which the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while retaining sharp edges; it is not the same as an...

 and ambiguous features.

Synopsis

Emak-Bakia shows elements of fluid mechanical motion in parts, rotating artifacts showing his ideas of everyday objects being extended and rendered useless. Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin

Alice Prin

Alice Ernestine Prin , nicknamed Queen of Montparnasse, and often known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was a French artist model, nightclub singer, actress, memoirist, and painter. She flourished in, and helped define, the liberated, early 1920s culture of Paris.- Early life :Alice Prin was born in...

) is shown driving a car in a scene through a town. Towards the middle of the film Jacques Rigaut

Jacques Rigaut

Jacques Rigaut was a French surrealist poet. Born in Paris, he was part of the Dadaist movement. His works frequently talked about suicide and he came to regard its successful completion as his occupation...

appears dressed in female clothing and make-up. Later in the film a caption appears

La raison de cette extravagance (The reason for this extravagance)

And it cuts to a car arriving and a passenger leaving with briefcase entering a building, opening the case revealing men's shirt collars which he proceeds to tear in half. The collars are then used a focus for the film, rotating through double exposures.

Sources

• Flicks - March 2001 http://www.cinescene.com/flicks/flicks042001.html; Chris Dashiell (2001)