After Fantomas, Les Vampires and Judex, Feuillade gave us another masterpiece of poetry, mystery and suspense. Always fascinatingly ridiculous from a logical point of view, but with an unparalleled mastery when it comes to narrating its complicated plots, maximizing tension and fun. Marvelously restored by Gaumont, we can enjoy a jewel of cinema that has remained hidden for 100 years.
Tih Minh is of extraordinary smoothness and elegance: in the framing, in the rhythm, in the editing. All the elements of the staging are complemented with absolute security, in a new classicism that is not at odds with the usual suggestive and evocative character of Feuillade's images.
The budget is clearly higher than Vampires, here there are complex exterior scenes, luxurious sets and numerous and varied locations. The cinematography is beautiful and the lighting very careful. I don't know what it is about these French silent films that capture the light with a poetry and a naturalness that would not be seen in later cinema.
This sophistication is in keeping with the much more serious and traditional theme of Tih Minh, but it detracts from the serial's groundbreaking and explosive character that Vampires had. Here we move in a safer environment.
And we are already very far from the fascinating minimalist style of Fantomás. In 5 years the technique had developed and standardized a lot. That essentiality of Fantomas is lost, and it is gained in baroque lavishness.
The atmosphere of Fantomas (at least in the first three episodes) was unrepeatable, and that feeling of real threat in each shot is missed, that totally irreverent fascination with evil. Tih Minh is far from the absolute masterpiece that Fantomas was.
But it is unfair to compare them given the very diverse genre of the two works. Fantomas wasn't a serial, and it didn't follow the same rules.
A marked melodramatic element has crept into Tih Minh, now it's very much about the love story between Tih Minh and Jacques d'Athys with a certain dose of goofiness. A popular comic element has also appeared, complementing the main plot, perfectly integrated and generating very interesting symmetry effects. The problem is that in Tih Minh, as in Vampires, it often fails because of its very lack of humor: Georges Biscot as servant Placido is almost as insufferable as Marcel Lévesque in Vampires. His winks at the camera, stupid grimaces and coarse mimicry, makes him resentful from the first chapter.
Even so, the games of masters and servants, as if taken from a seventeenth-century comedy, give rise to interesting structural functions and amusing symmetries. That comedy classicism of the old regime is even noticeable in the appearance of Sir Frances Grey, an English diplomat, expected since we see that the protagonist's sister does not have a partner.
It is true that despite his stupid humiliating comicality, Placido shows cunning and resources far superior to those of his often unimaginative master.
As for logic, Fantomas had an internal logic, rules which were dreamy, unrealistic, often crazy, but generally followed. Vampires was already an exuberant "anything goes here" that kept our credibility in suspense, without us caring much about it. Tih Minh is again a show that seems to say...if it's more fun without logic...why do we need logic.
Fantomas was a master of crime. Vampires had a strong will for evil and a good network of contacts, but were often clumsy in their decisions and methods. In Tih Minh the wicked are really quite incapable. They seem to be careful not to cause irreversible harm, and their few actual assassination attempts, which take place fairly late in chapters, are elaborate and complicated enough to be sure they will go wrong.
Fantomas and Vampires terrorized an entire society, and the police were unable to stop them. Here, surprisingly, the authorities are missing, and everything is reduced to a kind of chess game between good guys and bad guys from two luxurious villas on the blue coast.
But it's all hilarious nonsense. We see it with the eyes of a child, amazed by so much beauty, so many unforgettable scenes, enjoying the weaving and unweaving of impossible plots full of abductions, hypnosis, potions, letters with invisible ink, robberies and of course trunks.
