A Fantastical Meal

Filmmaker Georges Méliès was originally a stage magician. And, using a magician's sensibilities, he began making films where he put his magical inclinations into his pictures. So, in order to fool the audience, he employed a lot of brand new camera tricks....ones which wowed his viewers but which today are easy to understand and which seem pretty primitive. Considering he was making films well over 120 years ago, his work is impressive in this context.

In this film, a man and two women are eating a meal when all sorts of mischief takes place...such as food disappearing (achieved by simply stopping and starting the camera to create the illusion of apparitions). In the end, it's quite confusing as the man is tossed onto a wall and spins around a lot. I'm not really sure why...and I am not 100% Georges Méliès knew either! One of his weaker efforts and he made similar films which were much better.

Once again, it's proven that the world of Méliès is a harsh and dangerous place. Chairs in superposition, teleporting tables, exploding meal, and a dancing ghost! What a horrible lunch time! Usually the unfortunate victim of the madness gets away with a minor, life-long trauma, but in this case, the person who had the nerve to fight back against the horrors of the early cinema got destroyed without mercy. Rest in peace, you brave fool!

Three people are trying to have a meal. Melies genius comes to the fore when mundane activities, like eating or taking a nap, lead to all kinds of craziness. This starts with the trio trying to sit down and having their chairs disappear. Then a huge soup tureen is brought in, but in the tureen are some gigantic boots. When the turkey is brought in, everything happens to prevent it from being consumed. The conclusion is utterly surreal. These films have been improving since I viewed the earliest ones.

Fantastical Meal, A (1900)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

aka Le Repas fantastique

Very funny film has a father and his two daughters trying to enjoy a peaceful meal but soon various magic tricks are taking place right before a ghost shows up. This is one of the director's better films as it offers some familiar magic tricks mixed in with some new ones. The highlight of the film is a scene where the father goes to cut the turkey only to have the table grow as tall as the ceiling. We get several gags dealing with chairs disappearing as people are trying to sit down but we also get new gags including a great sequence where the father gets possessed by the ghost and then goes flying around the room. The special effects dealing with the ghost are extremely good and it's shocking that forty-years later they wouldn't even be topped.