Pictures on the Sideline (S)

"At that point in film history, it was probably still a pretty novel idea that one could cut from a pompous politician speaking to a small dog yapping. Indeed, Sur les bords de la caméra (also 1932, also incorporating found footage from 1928) uses the same technique with more restraint [than Histoire du Soldat Inconnu]. It reminded me a little of Bruce Conner’s A Movie, where odd juxtapositions gradually come to seem more sinister and finally disastrous. Scenes of groups exercising, religious processions, shots in traffic and in prison, all add up to a suggestion that a whole population is voluntarily doing regimented things controlled by the police and other authorities." Krisitn Thompson