Tuesday, August 31, 2021

A Movie You Might Have Missed #49: The Extraordinary Voyage

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

The cinematic journey of the iconic film A Trip to the Moon


We came across this on the Docurama channel when surfing Roku.

What a find! This tells the story of Georges Melies, whose 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune left us with the indelible image of gentlemen in top hats exploring the moon. However, in order to tell Melies' story, the filmmakers wove the story of early cinema itself around the narrative. It winds up following restoration efforts to the only hand-colored print of the film in existence.

In particular I loved seeing how experimenting with a new medium allowed vivid story telling and imaginative special effects in those early days. Clocking in at 78 minutes, The Extraordinary Journey is packed with entertainment and elegant fantasy as well as being a fascinating tale.

4 comments:

  1. Have you read "The Invention of Hugo Cabret"? It is a bit of a spoiler asking on this post, but still a fun book.

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    1. I saw the movie Hugo and that sent me to read the book, which I liked better than the movie. Of all three I actually prefer this documentary which is charming in its own movie-loving, French way. :-)

      I refrained from mentioning it during the review because of that spoiler-ish aspect you mentioned. There are moments when you see photos of Georges Melies at his little shop and realize that the movie must have used them as references.

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  2. After reading your post, I searched for a way to stream these and was lucky enough to find them through Kanopy courtesy of our public library. We watched The Extraordinary Voyage after A Trip to the Moon, and the story of its restoration blew us us away. Thank you for your review.

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    1. I'm so glad to hear that! I have such a fondness for this movie! (Both of them, actually.)

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