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6.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Muratti greift ein remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have three minutes to spare today, you should watch this. Stop-motion geeks will love it, but if you need an actual plot, you will probably hate this 1934 German cigarette ad.
Yes, you read that right. Muratti greift ein is a movie theater commercial for cigarettes, made by Oskar Fischinger, who was a stop-motion wizard.
The whole thing is just rows of cigarettes marching out of their boxes. They don't have legs, so they just waddle and slide on their flat bottoms.
It is oddly cute, which is a weird thing to say about tobacco. 🚬
I kept wondering how long it took Fischinger to nudg every single cigarette between frames. There are dozens of them on screen at once, doing perfect synchronized moves.
It reminded me of the silent charm in The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom, though that one had actual people.
The movement gets more complex as the music swells. They start doing slides that look like old Hollywood musical numbers.
I think my favorite part is when they all line up and start bowing. Then, a giant sun rises, but the sun is just a big circle that says "Muratti" on it.
The cigarettes are literally worshiping the brand logo. It is incredibly corporate but also so artsy that you forget they are trying to sell you stuff.
It has a similar energy to the theatrical style in Die Tänzerin von Sanssouci, but with paper tubes instead of dancers.
There is a weirdly hypnotic rhythm to the whole thing. The shadows cast by the cigarettes shift slightly because the lighting wasn't perfectly consistent.
It is those little imperfections that makes vintage stop-motion feel so alive. Much better than modern CGI.
Anyway, its on YouTube and it is super short. Just go watch it.
