The Impossible Voyage (1904)

Startled by the surreal delights of The Devilish Tenant,I decided to take a look at the other credits from Georges Méliès.Reading IMDb reviews for some of Méliès movies,I found a title which was called a "companion" piece to A Trip To The Moon,which led to me getting ready to go on a voyage.The plot:Making plans to travel to the sun,a group of tech workers decide to use all mode of transportation possible. Going to the Swiss Alps first,the gang soon find out that machines can't be relied upon. View on the film:Tinting the film, actor/director Georges Méliès soaks the movie in a blitz of colour,as smoke pops out in a whirl of colour on the "troubled" adventure to the moon.Along with the splashes of colour, Méliès skilfully brings the various types of transportation to life with a razor sharp mix of live action and animation which wraps the film in a surrealist atmosphere. Returning to Jules Verne for inspiration, Méliès examines Verne's Journey Through the Impossible in an abstract manner. Whilst this approach does allow Méliès to pour out visual flourishes,the lack of any inter-titles over the 20 min run time leads to there being no feeling of build up towards the gang reaching the sun,as they cross the impossible.

I suppose you could consider this film as a spiritual follow up to A Trip to the Moon. The latter remains George Méliès most famous and iconic film; probably for good reason considering its ambition and imagination. An Impossible Voyage explores similar territory and is certainly a worthy companion-piece as an example of early cinematic science fiction.In this one a group of scientists don't go to the moon, they head further afield to the sun. Perhaps this illustrates Méliès reaching out further too. Certainly this is another example of him developing the idea of what cinema could be. Unlike most of his peers, he was taking the medium into the story-telling sphere. Films like this were in this sense the beginnings of modern cinema as we know it.The film features a nice colour tint that adds a great deal to the fantastical look. It contains a number of hand painted sets that gives it all a highly stylised look. The scientists' adventure not only takes them to the sun but also across the mountains of Switzerland, which Méliès also depicts like an alien landscape. The travellers end up in the bottom of the ocean completing their amazing journey. All in all this is an entertaining and highly imaginative work, well worth catching.

Impossible Voyage, The (1904) *** (out of 4) Melies attempt to pass his landmark A TRIP TO THE MOON doesn't quite come close to that but this here is still an entertaining little film. Running 20-minutes, this tells the story of a Geographic Society who build a special ship that will take them through the sky, to the sun and then under the sea. That's pretty much the only type of plot we get here as the master Frenchman really makes for an inter sting film that has more going on for it visually than anything story wise. I must admit that I found what little story we have here to be quite boring as none of the human characters are all that interesting (not too uncommon for 1904) but the places they visit really aren't that interesting either. The look of all the locations is what makes this film worth seeing as there's no doubt Melies put a lot of imagination into everything we're seeing. I really loved the hand-colored stuff as this too had imagination behind it and it wasn't just a scribbled mess. The underwater sequence is a good one but the highlight would have to be when the ship goes into the mouth of the sun.

What an interesting and unusual little feature this is - the combination of Méliès and Jules Verne always produces something worth seeing, and this one is based on one of Verne's most fantastical ideas. It follows a group of scientists and scholars on a very fanciful trip that uses every imaginable form of conveyance, and the story gives Méliès all kinds of opportunities for his trademark visual effects.Each scene is packed with details, so much so that you cannot even catch it all in one viewing. It is also color-tinted in many places, which adds even more to the effect. The story is just wild, and is less plausible than many Verne stories, but that does not detract from it as entertainment. Méliès even tosses in a little slapstick, which is not too bad for its time. It is similar to, and just a cut below, his film of Verne's "Trip to the Moon", and anyone who enjoyed that classic should also like this one.