Détresse et Charité [The Christmas Angel] (1904)

I'm including both the French and English titles above, but it's actually more accurate to say I've seen The Christmas Angel, as the French version contained a very different ending. The original resolution sounds more interesting, but I haven't been able to find it and I'm guessing the sanitized, happy US version is the only one that survived (I should probably just be grateful any version of this survived more or less intact).

The movie is around nine minutes long, and it was made by legendary French director, illusionist, inventor, and probably a whole host of other things, Georges Méliès.

The film starts in the home of a poor family in winter around the holidays. The mother's sick and the father's tending to her. Also, there's a hole in their ceiling that snow's pouring through, and a guy I'm assuming they owe money to comes in and argues with the father. At any rate, their only hope seems to be their daughter, who goes out begging for charity.

This goes poorly for her. Everywhere she goes, she's pushed away by people with means, thrown out by business owners, and threatened by the police. Eventually, she finds herself on a bridge beside an old man scavenging for rags and bones. He at least gives her something to keep her warm and a scrap of food, and she moves on, eventually collapsing at the side of a snowy road, where she's found by a couple in an automobile.

Cut back to her home. Her mother seems to be doing a little better, but her parents are worried. They pray, and an angel briefly materializes in their living room before vanishing again. Their door opens and their daughter enters, followed by a crowd bearing gifts. Basically everyone who'd ignored the girl earlier piles in, and the movie ends.

If that all sounds a tad... anticlimactic... you're not wrong. Apparently, it's the alternate ending they shot after audiences reacted negatively to the original, in which the girl dies and is carried off by the angel. I'm not saying that sounds like a great time, but at least it wouldn't be coming from nowhere. And of course it would make the story resemble The Little Match Girl, which - judging by the volume of adaptations that would come out - was quite popular at the time.

For better or worse, Georges Méliès is more interested in spectacle and experience than in character, and that's evident from his films. These characters feel very one-dimensional; almost like they exist to inhabit the setting, which is the real star. And make no mistake, this looks fantastic. The sets are intricate illusions creating a sense of depth and feeling, despite being painted backdrops. Méliès's films are the forerunners to greenscreen: he's using the medium of film to make the unreal appear on screen. There's a sequence here with a restaurant where one of the walls is see-through, allowing you to watch the action inside and on the street simultaneously. The scenes on bridges contain elaborate backgrounds that seem to stretch for miles. You can tell how it's done, but the artistry on display is fantastic.

Is that enough to make up for the drama not really connecting? For me, yes. Honestly, I prefer Méliès's approach to the more traditional dramas I've seen from this era. Overall, I find realism from the silent picture days kind of dull. Frankly, no matter how good the actors are, watching people have conversations you can't hear for long stretches isn't all that compelling anymore. More than any of his contemporaries I've come across, Méliès used the medium to its fullest.

That said, I'd still rank this entry below the vast majority of fantasies and fairytales I've seen from him. Due to the subject matter, Méliès is restraining himself here. I respect that, but it does hold this back a hair for me. On top of that, the altered ending diminishes the impact this should have. I really wish the original was available: I have a feeling that might improve the overall effect.

The good news is that, while I don't think this is quite in the same league as some of the same director's other films, it fares far better compared to almost anyone else's from the time. Measured against other Christmas films from this era, this is near or at the top of the pack. Easily one of my two favorite silent Christmas films of its decade.

For the most part, I'm not doing recommendations for silent shorts, because I think these are incredibly difficult for some modern audiences to approach. That said, if I were recommending one Christmas film from this decade, it'd be this one.