Judging from the crowds watching the action and they way they block the view towards the end, "Course en Sacs" is undoubtedly a film depicting an actual event that took place possibly as part of some celebration or annual tradition. (This is also evidenced by the fact that the race takes place in the middle of a street). The entire thing, like all the Lumière features, is only roughly 40 seconds and consists of a single, well-composed view that tries as best it can to keep the subject of the picture in frame. In this case, it was obvious the Lumières had no intention of doing so and thought only to capture part of the race, which no doubt progressed further down the street. This would explain why the crowd breaks onto the track, in order to glimpse further action.
The short film is a very brief documentation of at least a dozen people participating in a sack race. Many of them are good, and all make it past the camera by the time the short comes to an end. The funniest and clearly the most interesting part is the one guy who doesn't get how to hop in his sack and falls far behind. He tumbles over once, and then some jerk from the sidelines thinks it would be fun to knock him over again to embarrass him even more. I pity that guy. It must have been embarrassing for him to have his only appearance in film be of him jumping around in a sack and falling over like an idiot.
And, as usual, these brief actualities always provide good records of forgotten customs and lifestyles that we would normally not be able to see today. In this case, we get to see what people did for fun instead of sitting around on smart phones and computers like now.
The short film is a very brief documentation of at least a dozen people participating in a sack race. Many of them are good, and all make it past the camera by the time the short comes to an end. The funniest and clearly the most interesting part is the one guy who doesn't get how to hop in his sack and falls far behind. He tumbles over once, and then some jerk from the sidelines thinks it would be fun to knock him over again to embarrass him even more. I pity that guy. It must have been embarrassing for him to have his only appearance in film be of him jumping around in a sack and falling over like an idiot.
And, as usual, these brief actualities always provide good records of forgotten customs and lifestyles that we would normally not be able to see today. In this case, we get to see what people did for fun instead of sitting around on smart phones and computers like now.