Bear Hunt in Pärnumaa
About Bear Hunt in Pärnumaa
Mayor Frakmann, made up to resemble the real Pärnu mayor Oskar Brackmann, reads that a large bear is terrorizing the local Baltic Germans. He sends the police, who tumble like comics, and a posse he has raised. They fight the bear. The animal is a man in a costume, and the hunters come off worse. The title puns on the journalist Jaan Karu: karu is the Estonian word for bear.
Cast & crew
More about Bear Hunt in Pärnumaa
Johannes Pääsuke directed. Karl August Hindrey's December 1913 piece in Pärnu Postimees supplied the pun and is credited as the writing. Cinema owner Aleksander Tippo produced it for Estonia Film. It opened on 13 February 1914. Reference listings give 11 minutes. It is counted as the first Estonian narrative film because the makers and the company were local. An earlier story film, Laenatud naene, was not.
Themes
Background
Baltic Germans still ran Pärnu's offices in 1914 while Estonian papers were pushing back. Hindrey's December 1913 article made the bear-hunt pun, and the film followed in February.
Making
Tippo, who owned a cinema, and Pääsuke turned Hindrey's newspaper joke into a short the town could recognize: the mayor's face, the police, and a bear suit.
Preservation
A print survives. It was shown at the 2019 Pordenone silent-film festival and by Estonian public broadcaster ERR.
Notes
- The Estonian title is Karujaht Pärnumaal.
- Pärnu was in the Russian Empire's Livonia province in 1914.
- Le Giornate del Cinema Muto screened it in 2019 and noted that the bear is a costumed man and that no animal is hurt.
- The satire is aimed at the Baltic German town elite, not at a wildlife hunt.
- ERR put a copy online for the centenary in 2014.
Scenes
- Frakmann reads the report of a bear attacking the German townsfolk and calls out the police.
- The posse fights a bear that is a man in a costume and loses.
Influenced by
- Karl August Hindrey's article in Pärnu Postimees (December 1913)