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Clip description
This clip shows elephants carrying goods on their backs in South-East Asia; village huts by a river, filmed from onboard a boat; and street scenes in a larger city.
Curator’s notes
In the late 1920s, Horace Buckley was living in Kuala Lumpur with his wife, Nell, and working in Thailand. The city scenes in this clip are probably of Kuala Lumpur.
This clip is of interest not only as an historical record, but also because these scenes were important to the filmmaker. It is easy to forget that actuality footage is the result of an active process with the filmmaker choosing what to capture within the frame. Buckley focuses on the bustle of the road and allows the camera to follow the natural movement of people and traffic along its passageway. While this may seem mundane, the observation of daily life is a common feature of home movies.
