A century-old French silent film came alive in Chandigarh last evening as Paris Qui Dort (The Crazy Ray) cast its timeless spell at the Café Théâtre, Alliance Française, Sector 36. The screening was accompanied by a live performance by Stéphane Scharlé, celebrated French drummer, composer and founder of the jazz collective OZMA.

Presented by the French Institute in India in collaboration with the Alliance Française network, the cine-concert offered audiences a dreamlike fusion of cinema and music. Scharlé’s self-invented Augmented Drum, blending percussion, loops and electronic textures, gave new life to René Clair’s 1924 masterpiece — one of the earliest science fiction films in French cinema.

The audience was transported to a Paris frozen in time — a city held still by a mad scientist’

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