'Le Voyage dans la lune' / 'A Trip to the Moon' (George Méliès, 1902)

Title: 'Le Voyage dans la lune' / 'A Trip to the Moon' 

Release year: 1902

Director: George Méliès

Cast: George Méliès, Jeanne d'Alcy, Bleuette Bernon.

Plot: The film shows the preparation and posterior trip to the Moon in which a number of astronomers participate. After landing and struggling against difficultives (they're attacked and captured by moon natives, the 'selenites'), they are able to escape and return to the Earth safe.

Review: That will be, almost certainly, the Only non-american movie I will review, just as an example of how cinema was at its early beginning back on its native country, France.

Of course we had seen other movies before, but 'Le Voyage dans la lune' will be remembered as one of the first attempts to tell a complete story, even if it only lasted 14 minutes.

This, as commented in the theoretical part of the project, was thanks to the pioneer George Méliès. He created one of the most technically innovative movies of his time, both in black and white and in hand-colored versions. And despite we can consider the special effects quite poor now, it’s almost magical to see how he struggled to find a way to explain a story (in that case, flying to the moon) and how beautifully he showed us that imagination could take us as far away as we wanted, even more than 100 years ago.

That way, it’s almost impossible not to feel caught by his dreamy illusion, a science-fiction tale with (nowadays) a very common storyline, but that, back at the beginning of the century, was a piece of pure imagination and “magical” techniques, becoming one of the most important and remembered movies of cinema's first years.

The iconic image of a rocket crashing into the Moon's eye