An Impossible Voyage
1904 · 20m · France
Directed by Georges Méliès
Genres: adventure, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
A group of eccentric scientists from the Geographic Society attempt an impossible journey to the Sun using every known means of transportation, traveling through the Alps and eventually crashing into the Sun before plunging into the ocean. A spectacular early silent film showcasing Georges Méliès's pioneering trick photography and hand-colored special effects.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
1904 Méliès hand-colored interplanetary chaos — and the YouTube link is dead from a Flicker Alley copyright claim. The film slaps, the access doesn't.
Méliès's hand-colored sequel to A Trip to the Moon is canonical early cinema and an essential survey piece — the YouTube takedown by Flicker Alley is curatorial reality, not artistic problem. The film itself remains essential.
Video pulled by Flicker Alley copyright claim — the URL is dead. The Méliès 1904 hand-colored fantasia is historically essential, but until a working source is found I can't pick what I can't deliver.
Reviews
This film expressed all of Méliès's talents. In it his feeling for caricature, painting, theatrical invention and camera science became triumphant.
The complexity of his tricks, his resourcefulness with mechanical contrivances, the imaginativeness of the settings and the sumptuous tableaux made the film a masterpiece for its day.