Jan Cornelis Mol specialized in shooting footage using the time-lapse technique: at intervals of fifteen minutes or more, he filmed budding plants or flowers so that the flowers seemed to bloom within a few seconds. Mol also experimented with sound and color systems and was one of the first to introduce optical sound on the amateur film format 16mm.
Uit het rijk der kristallen is one of the most successful and fascinating scientific films made by Mol. The crystallization processes of various chemicals which are visible only through the microscope are shown using time-lapse acceleration at times. Mol worked several years on this film, producing different versions. The original black and white silent film was given a soundtrack in the 1930s, and he also produced a color version of the film, Kristallen in kleur. It partly made use of the Dufaycolor system. The film was not only screened at educational and scientific presentations, but also circulated in avant-garde circles. Filmliga considered it a good example of the ‘absolute film’ as it contains one of Mol’s trademarks, a fascination for abstraction. The work was screened at the Harlem branch of the Filmliga and also at Amsterdam’s Filmliga. In 1928 at a presentation at Studio 28 in Paris, the film was screened as a ‘triptyque’, with three projectors side by side.
Our nitrate print of Kristallen in kleur had been preserved in 1996, but because colors played an important role, it was decided to try a new digital restoration to come closer to the hues of the nitrate print. That print was scanned with an Oxberry scanner at 2K. After grading, a new internegative and print were made.

Simona Monizza