Jean-Paul Le Tarare

Married carnival performers are subjected to the abuses of their employer in this silent film gem that has not received as much attention as it deserves. When the boss' unwanted advances on the wife are refused, he taunts a lion until it nearly kills her. But the other performers assist in a unique plot for revenge. Jaque Catelain directs and stars in this film made for influential French director Marcel L'Herbier's production company. Some sources also list L'Herbier as co-director, as he is credited here. The film boasts some rapid-fire editing techniques that were decades ahead of its time.

Loie Fuller, in her 1920 feature-length film Le Lys de la vie, […] explored the new technique for poetic ends, creating fleeting, dreamlike images that "freed" the medium from "illusionism" and imbued it with fantasy. A 17 minutes fragment is held at the Cinémathèque française.