This is a sister film of sorts to A Trip to the Moon from a couple of years earlier, complete with an image of the 'man in the sun' devouring a train while yawning that is nearly as iconic as the shot of the rocket that hit the 'man in the moon' in the eye in the earlier film. Oh, I loved that bit - look for it in the sequence that starts at 12:15, it makes the whole thing worth seeing. It's also got a variety of vehicles crashing, people getting frozen solid in an ice car, and a little underwater action, as Méliès makes this journey considerably more madcap and chaotic. The trouble is, there's also a lot of time spent on things like a crowd of people parading about, getting on the next vehicle one by one, or otherwise gesticulating wildly. The narrative isn't quite as tight or spiked with wow moments than in some of his other efforts, maybe because it's 21 minutes long. Amusing though.
Review of An Impossible Voyage
