Eaux d'Artifice ("Water Works") is a 1953 experimental short film (12 minutes) by Kenneth Anger.
It was shot in the garden of the Villa d'Este
, an opulent estate in Tivoli, Italy. The film, which has no story and no dialogue, is shot in the gardens and water fountains that are a distinctive feature of the villa. In the film, a woman in opulent 18th-century dress (actually a little person, a circus performer named Carmilla Salvatorelli) wanders aimlessly around the plants and fountains of the garden. The camera's focus is not on her, however, but on the water from the water fountains, which throughout the short film is seen flowing and shooting in spraying in ways that often make it look like stars or diamonds in the moonlight.
The title is a pun on Anger's previous short film, Fireworks, which in French is "Feux d'artifice".
Tropes:
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Well, maybe not. But in the last shot the woman, who has been wandering around the garden while the water arcs, seems to enter into a water fountain and merge with it.
- Blade-of-Grass Cut: Many tight closeups of the sparkling water of the fountains.
- The Faceless: The woman's face is never seen; she's only shot from the rear or obliquely.
- Forced Perspective: Anger cast a little person in order to make the fountains look larger.
- Gratuitous French: Besides the title, there's Kenneth Anger, a dude born and raised in Santa Monica, introducing his movie with the title card "Un film d'Anger".
- No Plot? No Problem!: No story, just a sort of visual poem of the water in the fountains.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Vivaldi's The Four Seasons adds to the sense of wonder and beauty.
- Silence Is Golden: No dialogue.
