Spanish Clair de Lune
Two lovers perform a fandango dance. A jealous quarrel follows and the heart-broken swain decides to end it all. He throws himself from the window of his room, but instead of falling to his death, the anchor of a passing balloon intercepts his flight and he is taken high into the clouds. Laughing at his plight, the moon arouses the anger of the desperate lover and a battle between the two ensues.
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Reviews
Please don't spend money on this.
Am I Missing Something?
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
A magic film from the Gaumont studios which illustrates a battle in the moon, and a good deal more of supposed occurrences among the heavenly bodies. It is pleasing and is well photographed. The fact is that it is pleasant enough to make it welcome. The man who prepares the plays for the Gaumonts, or the one who selects them, perhaps, seems afflicted with a perpetual liver difficulty and selects generally only those more or less lugubriously inclined. Perhaps this lively picture was sneaked in without his knowing it. If that is the case some more sneaking should be done. It is a welcome change. - The Moving Picture World, July 31, 1909
When you watch the earliest silent films, you really need to adjust your expectations. What might seem like a very inconsequential film today might have been a huge hit and innovative title in its day. That's how it often is with the films of the French filmmaker and animator, Émile Cohl.Well before 1909, Georges Méliès had made some VERY similar films. However, back in the day, it was not uncommon for various filmmakers to 'borrow' or at least gain inspiration from another person's work. In this case, so much of what you see seems familiar.The story is set in Spain. A man tries to kill himself by jumping out the window but is caught by an anchor thrown from an airplane (it's obvious Cohl knew very little about planes!). He's drug to a weird land in space and for some odd reason, the man begins tormenting the Moon. The various celestial beings then come to punish the guy and eventually throw him back to earth. Weird and familiar.
Clair de Lune espagnol (1909) ** 1/2 (out of 4) This French film from director Emile Cohl is far from a good movie but fans of the bizarre should be entertained by it. Set in a Spanish cantina, a lover is about to kill himself by leaping from a window when a UFO flies by, snatches him from the air and takes him to the man in the moon. There's no question that this film seemed to have been influenced by the work of Georges Melies and especially his landmark A TRIP TO THE MOON. With that said, the comparisons between the two in terms of quality are pretty far off. This film here isn't all that well-made but I think it's just bizarre enough to where it will keep you entertained. I think the most interesting moments are when we actually get to the man in the moon and I really enjoyed the way the live action was mixed with the animation. I thought the stuff dealing with the moon look extremely good and it mixed quite well with the human actors. The pay off of the entire situation really doesn't go anywhere but at just around four-minutes there's no question that there's enough here to make it worth watching.
