Hitchcoc This is a crazy, delightful mess. Explorers make an effort to go to lands never seen and report back. They try to use every conceivable vehicle to go over mountains, under seas, through outer space, actually visiting the sun (I wonder if they went at night so they wouldn't get burned). There are laughs galore because the stuffed shirt explorers were in no way equipped to do any kind of huge investigation. No matter what horrible things happen to them, getting frozen, blown up, crashing from a hundred miles away, going through the sun, and on and on, they always make their way out. One of the stars of this film is the painted scenery. Melies really liked the jagged edges of the mountains and wacky surreal realms of the outer world.

ironhorse_iv This movie did the impossible. It's still exist while other films from Georges Méliès didn't. This movie is one of the 200 out of 500 films that still around to watch. These factors was cause by Méliès' destruction of his original negatives, the French army's confiscation of his prints and the typical deterioration of time. Honestly, it's really hard to criticize a film that survive this long, but I'll do my best, to be fair. In my opinion, this movie doesn't have the same magic as his earlier film, 1902 Voyage dans la lune/A Voyage to the Moon. In many ways, it felt like retread. Based on yet, another Jules Verne's novel/play, this movie has a similar satire of scientific exploration in which a group of geographers attempt a journey into the interior of the sun, instead of the moon. It really seem like this film was trying to recapture that movie's charm. While, it's not, technically a sequel, it tries way too hard to copy the original film. It even tries to have an iconic 'bullet to the Moon's eye' scene, by having a scene where a train, goes through the sun's mouth. Like the first film, our great grandfathers were quite ignorant back, when it came to science, but I do not blame them. The sun used to be a very mysterious place before the space age. It's amazing to see what human beings used to believe. It's somewhat believable at the time, that the sun's core, could be cool, enough to allow human beings to survive. The movie tries to bring, something new, by having the explorers use every known means of transportation, at the time, to get there. There are scenes, where the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps, so that, they can gather enough ice for their craft, so they can survive, the sun's extreme heat. Then, after, leaving the sun's surface, be able to cool, their craft under the ocean. These strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer more to Sci-fantasy or Steam-Punk, as today's standards. While, this movie is indeed, an indulgence of joyous escapism and brain-bypassing spectacle. In many ways, I felt like this movie was trying to do, too much to top the first film. This movie is chaotic. It dissolves some of narrative structures, by not having title cards. It's really, up to the viewer to dissolve, what's the film is trying to show. This lack of narrative, can make this film; a very confusing watch. The wild action, and slapstick style make this really odd film to witness. The strength of the film is the visuals. The variety of incredibly creative sets and props is amazing. Méliès, a prolific innovator in the use of special effects, shows why he's call, 'The Cinemagician"; by using cinematic techniques, such as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès's silent works can still, seem more entertaining, than any other silent films from the era. Certain themes are identifiable. A recurring feature is the pliability of the body, whether it transforms into something else. In this case, it's the face of the sun, turning from human to sun-like drawing. It's surreal. Surprising, this movie didn't have much eye candy. George Melies was known for putting beautiful women in his films and not giving them a part except to be wallflowers. Yet, this movie lacks that. Melies' moral philosophy is often Manichean and his feelings towards the opposite sex are ambivalent. Three kinds of women populated his pantomimes: angels, maids and temptresses. None of them, were really used here. This movie was nearly impossible for Georges Méliès to make. The production was once again created entirely inside the Montreuil studio and it really push his resources and ingenuity to his limits. The film was more expensive to produce than Trip to the Moon, and ran much longer. The film was 24 minutes in length (which at the time, was almost unheard). An optional 50-meter-long epilogue, was also filmed, but was sold separately. This supplementary section was believed lost until the 1970s, when a Méliès scholar John Frazer discovered it. However, it was lost, yet again, soon after, its discovery. Despite, being rare. This movie is easy to find on the internet. If you can't find; don't worry, because Director Martin Scorsese should clips of this film, in his 2011's film, 'Hugo', which tells a fictional story about Georges Méliès. Overall: While, a lot of people might not know, who George Melies and in my opinion, should watch Trip to the Moon, over this. This movie wasn't bad. It's quite meh (OK). In an era where so many directors were neither daring nor imaginative enough to make the impossible happen on screen, 'Le Voyage à travers l'impossible' is the pinnacle of early film-making. It's a must-watch for any silent film, fan.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) I recently saw the director's "Le voyage dans la lune" and while I didn't totally love it, it made a good viewing experience and I believe everybody who calls himself a cinephile should have seen it at least once. Now, two years later, the French cinema pioneer made another film considerably longer than most of his other work just like his moon travel story.Unfortunately, "Le voyage à travers l'impossible" did not leave me impressed. All in all, it felt like a recycled Trip to the Moon with an exchanged target location. There's nothing wrong with picking the sun as the explorers' destination this time. Sure it's impossible, but it's sci-fi and thus perfectly justified. But it's all been there and even done better (down to the sun's face) by the director himself. Honestly, I felt the first six minutes were downright boring. The actions and character movements looked exactly the same like in his previous project. The the action switches to the Alps, which is probably my favorite sequence. The scenes in the snow were interesting to watch, the hospital was nicely done and picking the mountains as a ramp to fly up to the sun was one of the few innovative ideas and executions in this short. The actual sun sequences were pretty forgettable again and so was the cheerful reception of the the explorers which was pretty much interchangeable with the one from two years earlier again.If you enjoyed "Le voyage dans la lune", I still think this one can be worth the watch if you don't mind this being mostly a weaker copy. But if you need to pick between the two, the Moon should always be your preferred destination.

sashank_kini-1 Earth + Space + Waters in 24 minutes (covering possibly 24 hours or 1 day in the movie) can become a calamitous ride and make you neither stand on earth, stay in space or swim in waters; this is what happens in The Impossible Voyage which tries to plant its flag on the Alps, the sun and in the oceans but fails everywhere. Of course there wasn't any flag in the movie; I am talking about the actual success of the film in covering such wide parameters in such a short time.I highly appreciated the efforts put by Georges in A Trip to the Moon, a science-fiction avant-garde film for its time. But here I sensed a buy-one-get-two free offer coming at me and I wasn't happy with either of the three. Why should I watch a group of jubilant men travelling so much? I need a reason here because I am giving 24 minutes for the film; in A Trip to the Moon, which was over in 8 minutes, I got much of the excitement and humor that appeased my appetite. Here, after the starter, the main-menu and the dessert, I became sick because all the three courses were disparate, uneven and highly pointless. Georges could've given a definite plot to the film, for example, three different groups going taking three different routes or something like that, instead of following the same angle of A Trip to the Moon. The story begins the same with a arguments, consternation and discussions between the men and women and also has a similar climax to A Trip in the Moon. We however see a train, a tank, a spacecraft and a submarine this time, and during the voyage to the sun, we actually see the train fly. Throughout the journey the men are cheered by everyone and we see some slapstick humor thrown in with the usual trips and tumbles. And since I saw it in color, I could see the red flames, the white snow and the brown mountains – this somewhat dampens the realistic element, making the background look all the more artificial.Everything here is perfunctorily covered, and Georges again wants more emphasis on special effects, but compromising on the story completely will not make them work. Also, without sound, the journey gets all the more drab and colorless. I wouldn't advise viewers on watching The Impossible Voyage to take a call on Georges' works – watch A Trip to the Moon or The India Rubber Head instead.