Starring: André Méliès
Director: Georges Méliès
Rating: Four of Ten Stars
An angel descends and whisks away a child (André Méliès) to a magical land of living toys and fairies. Or was it all a dream?
"The Grandmother's Story and the Child's Dream" (1908) is one of Georges Méliès lesser efforts. It's slow to get started, it's got sloppy blocking, and the trick photography is less precise than is the standard set by other films. I think the main problem here is that it was under-rehearsed, with its large cast not hitting their marks quite right and not standing still enough for Méliès in-camera special effects to work properly. That more rehearsal was needed also seems evident in how some of the fairies seem clumsy or listless, and how an adult actor yanks the "dreaming child" back to his mark in one scene.
It's a shame the performers in this film weren't steadier, because I like every idea present, I like the visualizations of the fairy-realm, and, other than the slow start, I appreciate that Méliès lets this film unfold at a less frenetic pace than many of his other works.
As always with these Méliès reviews, I encourage you to take a few mintues to check out the movie for yourself, right here in this post. You might find my take completely wrong--in which case I hope you'll let me know in a comment below.
No comments:
Post a Comment