User Reviews

Segundo de Chomón made "The Magic Mirror" and it's a very simple story (given it's only two minutes long) but technically a difficult film to make. It consists of a woman sitting in front of her magic mirror. When she sprays her atomizer, various women appear in the mirror and move about. Later, she makes the same thing happen on her jewelry...women appearing on it.

To achieve this effect, the filmmaker had to film the women and cut out the film and painstakingly insert it on the mirror or jewels. I've seen this done a few times and often it's shaky or inserted poorly, but not here. Well made for 1908.

In 1908, Pathé director Segundo de Chomón had mostly moved past directly copying his rival Méliès and was going on to actually outdo the great director. Some may argue differently, taking "Excursion to the Moon" as an example of a complete ripoff by him, but I think there's ample evidence that as time went on that he was pretty much past that. Don't forget, "The Electric Hotel" was made the same year as this, as well as a variety of clever trick films that were very much different from Méliès. The scenario of "Le Miroir Magique" is evidence of this. The short is not quite as creative as the wonderful stop-motion animation work done by him in the same year, but it's certainly not a ripoff of the great French director. The concept of miniaturized people appearing in something had been done before, but here it is used in a different way at least, despite remaining nothing exceptional.

The majority of this two-minute short consists of a scene of a woman (played by Julienne Mathieu, his wife) sitting at a dresser and using some sort of spray to cause pretty girls to appear in the mirror. The superimposition work is done well, but the concept feels like something Méliès had done before, if not exactly in the same context. The last forty seconds or so show a lot more originality, as the director cuts to closeups (which Méliès never did) to show the animated faces of more girls on articles of jewelry. The superimposing is done especially well there and the use of closeups makes it effective to see the illusion.

The opening title card puzzles me. It reads in French, and I quote: "Presente par Melle Susana Illusioniste". This translates to "Presented by Miss Susana Illusionist". Does "Miss Susana" imply the name of the main character in the film, or is that the name of the actress, meaning Mathieu didn't play this role? Either one could be true, but online sources and the title in the opening before this original French title seem very sure she did.

Because of the use of closeups, it is obvious Chomón was still developing his style. He was getting better at it, and the second half of the film is evidence of his growing originality in its new use of closeup illusions. "Le Miroir Magique" does, then, contain some new tricks but for the most part is mainly a run-of-the-mill magic show, nothing more.