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One of my all time favorites.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

We've seen films like this from Méliès before. Because he was an actual stage magician in real life, the man was obsessed with set-ups like this: a magic show for camera (although the tricks here are made by camera special effects). This minute-long film is all about the magician (as usual, Méliès himself) hanging up a wreath. He then makes (as you can imagine) people appear inside the wreath: the devil, a pretty young woman, and himself. Since Melies turned out "A Mysterious Portrait" the same year as this, I can't help but think that he was fascinated with matte shots and de-focuses at this point in his career. That said, while the tricks here are very well done (such as the de-focusing to make the people appear and disappear in the wreath), we've seen this before from Méliès and it doesn't feel like anything special. This isn't a bad film but it feels very same ole and Méliès obviously felt he had nothing better to do.

Melies takes out what appears to be a Christmas wreath, puts it on the wall, and people begin to appear in it. Of course, good old stereotypical Satan gets the first bow, then a young woman (I think she's young), and then a surprise at the end. It's more magic, which seems to be the forte of Melies. It was OK but we've seen so much of this before.

This short film which runs for slightly under a minute is basically another showreel for director and early film pioneer Geoges Méliès. He does one of his trademark magic shows here and it's nothing really out of the ordinary and probably not as interesting as some of his other work from 1899, like his version of Cinderella. In "Évocation spirite" we see Mélies in control of a magic wreath. And as if it was a television, we see several characters appear therein. First Lucifer the personified devil, than a beautiful dark-haired girl, both common themes in Méliès' work and finally Méliès is shown himself inside the wreath. Notable about this short film is that his magician movements and gestures are way more over the top than usual and it's an okay watch for silent film enthusiasts, but really not that interesting to everybody else.

Évocation Spirite is a simple trick film from Georges Méliès. In it he plays a magician who presents us with a wreath. From within this a woman's head appears. This in turn transforms into the head of the devil and then into Méliès himself. It's a basic set up and is only really a showcase for one visual bit of trickery. It's nicely done though and does illustrate again the imagination of Méliès. I wouldn't say it's one of his more inspired efforts though. It does seem merely a little diversion, rather than a fully-fledged piece. Still, like all films from this innovator, it's yet another example of the crazy visual ideas of this genius of the first age of cinema. For that reason, it's worth seeing.