With the large quantity of gay-themed short movies that were made in the last 10 years, "Un chant d'amour" may be considered a bit of a trail blazer. And as early as it was for that genre, it was obviously rather late for a black & white short film, long long after the Golden Age of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Arbuckle and the others. In this short film, we see several prisoners and how they manage to communicate through the heavy stone walls. They succeed surprisingly well and also manage, for the most part to avoid getting caught by the warden.
While their dreams of liberty were depicted fairly beautifully, I was not really wowed by the rest of the film, especially the prison parts. The depiction of seclusion and isolation was simply not made well-enough to get me truly emotionally involved. The story simply wasn't enough to justify a runtime of almost 30 minutes. Here and there, it got quite artistic, but it also overshot the mark occasionally and became pretentious, for example in the scene with the black prisoner dancing. All in all, I'd only recommend it to the biggest silent or b/w film enthusiasts.
While their dreams of liberty were depicted fairly beautifully, I was not really wowed by the rest of the film, especially the prison parts. The depiction of seclusion and isolation was simply not made well-enough to get me truly emotionally involved. The story simply wasn't enough to justify a runtime of almost 30 minutes. Here and there, it got quite artistic, but it also overshot the mark occasionally and became pretentious, for example in the scene with the black prisoner dancing. All in all, I'd only recommend it to the biggest silent or b/w film enthusiasts.