Soerabaia het straatverkeer op pasar-besar 15 juli 1929

Summary

Documentary footage of the traffic around the railway viaduct op pasar-besar, around half past one in the afternoon.

The camera focuses on the viaduct and on both sides of the traffic artery that crosses it. Images of traffic chaos, cars racing past each other, electric trams, ox carts, and bicycling office clerks. The camera pans along advertisements for aspirin and for Deluze's table wines, as well as shops with galleries and announcements for the film The Last Warning and Fritz Lang’s Siegfried and Die Nibelungen. On the facade of the Apollo cinema, billboards announce that starting on 18 July, the American actor Lon Chaney can be seen in The Unholy Three.

The shots of Surabaya show a city that resembles a European city. In some ways, the architecture is even more modern than the architecture in the West. Only the few local natives and the ox carts with water buffaloes indicate that the film is set in the Dutch East Indies.