Le Voyage imaginaire (1926)
Directed by René Clair

Film Review

Le Voyage imaginaire completes a trilogy of silent fantasies which René Clair wrote and directed at the very start of his illustrious filmmaking career.  Whilst it borrows some elements from Clair's previous two films - Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge (1925) and Paris qui dort (1925) - it is a far more ambitious and exuberant piece, with boisterous doses of slapstick accompanying the director's most eccentric flight of fancy.  Among the unexpected treats offered by the film is a weird digression into horror near the end of the film.  The sequence in which a hoard of murderous waxworks come to life in the Musée Grévin eerily prefigures the zombie movies of a much later era.  This sequence builds to one of Clair's best visual gags - the guillotining of a little dog - before pandemonium breaks out and waxworks of Clair's comedy icons (Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin) show up to save the day in what can only be described as Waxageddon.  It has to be seen to be believed.

Another personal icon that Clair pays tribute to in this film is the peerless cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès, whose penchant for camera effects proved to be an immense influence on Clair's early films.  Even the title, Le Voyage imaginaire, has a Méliès ring to it.  It's sad to think that just as Clair was crafting the most affectionate tribute to his art the once revered cinematic illusionist was reduced to earning his crust by selling toys and sweets at Montparnasse station in Paris.  The sequence set in the fairy lair, the deliriously funny centrepiece of the film, not only looks as if it may have been designed by Méliès, it is also chock-full of his most familiar effects, including improbable transformations.  In one hilarious scene the heroine is converted into a white mouse, who is promptly pursued hither and thither by the most unconvincing cat the human mind can conceive.  Wizened old hags become stunningly beautiful young women (by virtue of another brilliant gag) and the hero himself ends up being downgraded to a cute little dog (the aforementioned canine stand-in for Sydney Carton).

For a film that revels in eccentricity we should not be surprised that Clair gave the lead role to an acclaimed Swedish ballet dancer, Jean Börlin, rather than an established actor.  Börlin had previously been glimpsed in Clair's surreal short Entr'acte (1924) and only appeared in one other film (uncredited), Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (1924) before his untimely death in 1930.  Whilst not a natural actor, Börlin has an amiable screen presence that suits his character perfectly, and his athleticism is put to good use by his director.  Börlin's gorgeous co-star Dolly Davis is equally likeable - she went on to appear in films until the late 1930s, without ever achieving the stardom she merited.  In the cast only one name is instantly recognisable today, that of Albert Préjean - he had cropped up in Clair's Paris qui dort and would become a major star of French cinema in the 1930s and 40s.  One other face that might be familiar to enthusiasts of early French films is that of Maurice Schutz, who gives a superb performance in drag as the aged palm reader (later to be revealed as a fairy who has lost all her powers).  Schutz's marvellously craggy features and penetrating gaze were exploited by Clair in Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge and also brought a graveyard eeriness to such films as Jean Epstein's Mauprat (1926) and Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932).

Le Voyage imaginaire is very much an eager young man's indulgence fest, a lively and undisciplined farce that abounds with visual gags and pretty ingénues in scanty fairy costumes.   It scarcely resembles the sophisticated cinematic gems that René Clair would consistently turn out once he had achieved maturity as a filmmaker.  In common with all of his silent films the plot is completely overtaken by an adolescent sense of fun which the imaginative young film director can scarcely contain.  In thrall to the genius of Méliès and the great American comics (note the homage to Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923) with the death-defying punch-up on the rooftops of Notre Dame Cathedral) Clair was living his dream - and who can blame him for taking things to the limits of absurdity?  It's nice to think that, among his other achievements, René Clair invented the zombie movie.

Film Synopsis

Jean, a modest bank clerk, is in love with his boss's secretary, Lucie, but he is too shy to impose his feelings on the angelic being who has stolen his heart.  Besides, his two colleagues, Albert and Auguste, are also lusting after Lucie, and, being less reserved, they are far more likely to win her affections.  One day, an elderly palm reader visits the bank and tells Jean that he is destined to marry the woman he loves.  Whilst frolicking in the woods later that day Jean sees the palmist being attacked by two men.  He comes to her rescue and, to show her gratitude, the old woman takes him to an underground lair inhabited by a whole battalion of decrepit hags.  The palmist explains that she and her companions were once beautiful fairies whose special powers were taken from them by an evil magician.  By kissing each of the old women in turn Jean restores them to their former luscious selves.  To show their gratitude, the fairies bring Lucie to Jean, so that they may live forever in their subterranean haven.  A bad fairy cannot resist transporting Jean's two rivals into the fairy lair, and to restore harmony Lucie must be expelled.  Jean elects to go with her.  Before Jean departs, the fairies give him a ring that will grant him his most fervent desire.  Albert tricks Jean into making a wish that has the unfortunate result of transforming him into a dog...