In 1977, Yervant Gianikian came upon a whole store of 9,5 mm films dating from the beginnings of motion pictures to 1928, silent movies reproduced from 35 mm copies (the or originals of which have been lost). A masterful job of cutting and the measured pace of the shots make the images yield their very substance - theaters of seduction and fear, in which bodies light and heavy move, leape, collapse, to the ground, to water. This is the cinema's great illusion that says, 'You see, it was really like this, for real.' The film is an aquatic world, it is an aquarium of collective imagery with its dominant figures, its sources of inspiration. It is a tale that has no end, and sensuality, eroticism, extasy come back again and again and again. The pictures lay woman bare and then clothe her again with almost maniacal insistence. The cinema is revealment, but it always falls short of its end. In wanting to show all human behaviour, it manages only to disclose our most mysterious poses. Karagoez? Un gioco delle ombre.