Le Voyage imaginaire
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le Voyage imaginaire |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1925 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | René Clair |
| script | René Clair |
| production | Rolf de Maré |
| camera |
Jimmy Berliet , Amédée Morrin |
| occupation | |
| |
Le Voyage imaginaire (Eng .: "The imaginary journey") is a French surrealist silent film from 1925 by director René Clair .
action
A shy young man named Jean works in a Paris bank. He is in love with the secretary Lucie and wants to hand her a small bouquet of flowers. But the bank director and colleague Albert also kept an eye on the pretty woman. Jean and Albert finally get into an argument and a fight breaks out, in which colleague Auguste is also involved.
Shortly afterwards an old palm reader appears in the bank. She reads Lucie and Jean's hand and predicts a love marriage for both of them. Jean is especially happy about it. When Albert flirts with Lucie, however, Jean is sad and insecure again. Lucie assures him that she doesn't love Albert, but Jean doesn't even notice what she is saying because he fell asleep at his desk. Suddenly he gets up and leaves. As he happily jumps back and forth in a meadow, the palm reader is attacked by two men. Jean rushes to her aid and the men run away. The old woman gives him a kiss and tells him that she is a fairy who hundreds of years ago a wizard had drained his strength. Only a kiss from a young man could restore her magic power, which is why she wants to reward Jean for his service. Jean now follows her through a tunnel in a tree. You get to an underground surreal place where you step past various obstacles into a palatial space. There Jean is supposed to kiss the fairy's sisters so that they too can regain their magic powers. Jean runs away first. When he finally kisses the old women, one after the other turns into a beautiful young woman. The fairy Jean came with is also becoming young and beautiful again. Her name is Urgel and now warns him about the evil fairy who nevertheless kisses Jean. As a thank you, Jean is to receive eternal life from the fairies. However, since Jean does not want to live without Lucie, Lucie should also live forever. Suddenly Lucie stands in the room and happily falls into Jean's arms.
Meanwhile Albert and Auguste discover the tunnel and also get into the underground palace. When Jean and Lucie get closer, the jealous, wicked fairy turns Lucie into a white rat who, fleeing from Puss in Boots, jumps into a fountain and swims away. While Albert and Auguste hold Jean in search of Lucie, Puss in Boots can still catch Lucie. At this moment Urgel appears and transforms Lucie back into a woman. Urgel now gives Jean a ring that should fulfill his every wish.
Together with Albert and Auguste, Jean and Lucie are conjured back to Paris, where they land on the roofs of Notre Dame . When Jean and Lucie kiss, Albert intervenes and causes the naive Jean to transform himself into a dog with the fairy's ring. Auguste and Albert are now fighting over the ring. When she on his walk down -Ufer, they are followed by Lucie who is worried about Jean. You finally go to a wax museum, the Musée Grévin , where dogs are forbidden.
When Albert finally has the ring to himself and wants to use it, the ring has lost all magic because it was given to Jean. Lucie finally learns from Auguste that Jean is a dog that has meanwhile been able to sneak into the cabinet. Lucie loses consciousness and does not wake up again until midnight. To her horror, the wax figures of famous people are suddenly alive. Lucie and Jean are captured by them and sentenced to death. When Jean is to be executed with a guillotine , the wax figure of Charlie Chaplin can just prevent this. It comes to a tumult in which the characters lose their hands and heads. Shortly after Jean turned back into a human with Chaplin's help, he woke up at his desk in the bank - he had only dreamed it all. However, his dream gave Jean the self-confidence he needed to hold his own against Albert and Auguste. He knocks them both down and kisses the impressed Lucie. After skillfully repairing a car on the street, he walks away with Lucie in love.
background
Rolf de Maré , who had previously produced René Clair's short film Entr'acte , asked the director to make a full-length film with Jean Börlin in the leading role. After Clair had finished the screenplay for Le Voyage imaginaire , the shooting took place from May to June 1925, as with Clair's Paris qui there (1925), on original locations in his hometown Paris . For the first time in a film by René Clair, a character instead of a situation, like the sleeping city in Paris qui there , was the starting point of the plot. In addition, the character of Jean was the first of Clair's film heroes, who were shy, poor and in love with an unreachable woman.
The film, originally entitled Le Songe d'un jour d'éte , premiered on October 14, 1925 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris .
Web links
- Le Voyage Imaginaire in the Internet Movie Database (English)