The Extraordinary Adventures Of A Quart Of Milk


View at Zeughauskino - Deutsches Historisches Museum
  • Genre: Documentary film
  • Year: 1951
  • Runtime: 00:13:32
  • Description: The film tells of incredible adventures in the commentary. But its images explore the gleaming machinery of a factory, full of the latest new technology, with which milk from all over France is turned into milk powder. This helps to absorb seasonal surpluses and stabilize the price of milk. The factory was made possible with Marshall Plan funds, and the film extracts charms from its unusual subject by resorting to an ironic tone. What happens in the centrifuges and heaters is told from the perspective of a can of powdered milk. From the milking machine to the milk cans, from transport by truck and train, the production stages of fat reduction to finally the processes of pasteurization and concentration - what happens to the milk appears here as an adventurous event. But what is really convincing, apart from the narrative conceit, is the photography, which takes on the technical apparatus with great ingenuity. The commentary is the pretext, the sequences of images need it as the scaffolding. Taken on their own, montage and photography, on the other hand, aim at a "cinematic film", without a continuous plot carrier, completely concentrated on the sequence within the production. In this respect really: an extraordinary adventure. © Rainer Rother (machine-translated from German)
  • Keywords: VICTOR-E project / manufacturing process / factory / dairy farm / countryside / cows / train / chemist
  • Provider: Deutsches Historisches Museum
  • Rights: In Copyright / USIA - Embassy of the United States of America / Press Office, Berlin
  • Production company: Tele-Radio-Cine, Paris, for ECA France
  • Colour: Black & White
  • Director: Alain Pol
  • Sound: With sound
  • Collection: Films of the Marshall Plan
  • Language: en