User Reviews

Like so often back in the early days of cinema, this film was first made by one filmmaker and then remade by another. Such thievery was pretty common and sometimes filmmakers copied other films exactly OR put their name on another person's film! In this case, Ferdinand Zecca made the film and Segundo de Chomón remade it just a few years later.

When the story begins, an old woman asks a man to help her carry her load. Instead of helping, he makes fun of her and goes to sleep. It turns out she's a fairy and she punishes him by giving him weird dreams. When she reappears, he begs her forgiveness.

Technically, for 1907 this is a very nice looking film...with nice (for the time) sets and costumes. Worth seeing, especially since I could not locate Zecca's original film.

"The Fairy of the Black Rocks" is one of the more Méliès-inspired short films by Segundo de Chomòn from 1907. At only three minutes and containing only two scenes, the stage trickery and flat cardboard creations seem quite inspired by the great French filmmaker, and the entire story is devoid of any originality due to the rather uninspired way it is told. Furthermore, the effects do not include any of the outstanding stop-motion animation that made the director a more innovative influence as time went on, and much of it consists entirely of simple camera edits. Chomòn obviously still had plenty to learn even by 1907.

The film is, in the first place, rather stagy--and lacking in any closeups at all. Chomòn's cutting would become more and more innovative as time went on, but in 1907 he was still figuring out his own style. The short takes place on what appears to be a mountainside, where a lazy young lad refuses a hag's request to carry her sticks for her. This infuriates the hag, who reveals herself to be a fairy and who plagues the poor man with apparitions to no end--until he begs for mercy. The story itself had been used before by Méliès in the past, albeit in a similar version he used for the plot of "The Enchanted Well" (1903). Furthermore, the apparitions are quite obviously just pieces of stage machinery moved in a rather lifeless manner--particularly the huge head, which was done by Méliès several times. The entire thing, apart from the effects, is pretty much a filmed stage play.

The brief scene transition to the snowy cemetery is done through a more dreamlike dissolve and the reason why they did the entire scene switch for such a brief time escapes me. It's pretty much your typical fairy-tale film of the period, containing some charm but very heavily influenced by Méliès overall. One of the most interesting things about it is the German title card at the beginning, signifying this film was released in Germany at one point.

On a side note, I would like to point out that another film by Pathé with the exact same French and English titles was also made--in 1902, five years before this. Apparently, that film was directed by Ferdinand Zecca instead. It's possible, then, that the print we have may be that movie rather than this 1907 title, as the entire film seems rather amateurish for such a later year.