Technology advances at such a fast rate these days we scarcely have time to appreciate the latest breakthroughs before the next many which always seems to be around the corner.

3D, IMAX, 4K, the tech comes out of the lab almost as fast as the terms roll off our tongues.

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While the market glitters with the latest hi-fi tech and gadgets, The Statesman takes you back to a seemingly ancient era, when mankind had just unearthed the golden treasure by gleaning the ability to see films in colour.

Yes, most millennials will be unable to fathom life without the VIBGYOR on the big screen but in the early 20th century, it was a literal godsend.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1914) was one such film, the first-ever feature-length narrative film in natural colour ( Most films prior to that used stencils to colour in). Directed by Martin Thornton, it used the then-revolutionary technology that came to be known as Natural Colour Kinematograph.

A bitter woman plots to switch babies of an affluent and a destitute family. The nurse refuses to carry on with the heinous crime at the 11th hour, leaving the children to grow happy, normal lives. Bedlam ensues when the man from the less privileged background goes to the young heir’s residence and revealed what he believed to be the truth.

A childishly simple story the naysayers might object, but a milestone for World Cinema in ways more than one. Unfortunately lost, The World the Flesh and the Devil in a runtime of exactly 50 minutes made history forever.

Moving back to the motherland, Indian cinema made the revolutionary breakthrough as ‘late’ as 1937, with Kisan Kanya. Film pioneer Ardeshar Irani, who had produced India’s first talkie Alam Ara (1931), pushed the boundaries with his movie (based on a novel by Saadat Hasan Manto). 

A relevant topic of the times, or perhaps one which will resonate even now in the 21st century, the plight of the downtrodden farmers of our great nation was given the spotlight on the silver screen.

An arrogant landlord is killed and the one whose misery he used to revel in, is made the prime culprit. It didn't do well as expected at the Box Office and perhaps the Cinecolor film was ahead of its time, we shall never truly know as the colour era well and truly started post the 1950s in Hindi and Tamil Cinema both.

Up next is a feature on the world’s first animated film! Watch this space.