Nouvelles luttes extravagantes

"Nouvelles luttes extravagantes" is one of film pioneer Georges Méliès' funniest films....and I found myself chuckling several times as I watched it. For such an early film, it was very well done and holds up pretty well today.

When the story begins, two women enter the picture. Their clothes instantly change before your eyes. Then, the instantly change into guys who wrestle. The match itself is INSANE...with one wrestler ripping the head and limbs off the other...and then they magically return. Later, two other wrestlers appear...one very large, the other skinny. What happens next REALLY made me laugh.

If you aren't familiar with Georges Méliès, he was a stage magician who became a filmmaker in 1896. He specialized in making films where magical stuff occurs due to various camera tricks he pioneered. Most are things that are very obvious today...but back in the day, they made audiences marvel. Most of the tricks in this particular film were done by stopping the camera, making a change and then restarting the camera to make it appear as if something has disappeared or changed. Pretty simple stuff but also quite clever and fun. My score of 10 is relative to other films of the day.

Most of the time when I view these pioneering efforts, I comment on how much one could do with so little. The plots are thin, but after all, it's 1900. This little wrestling bit is one of the best I've seen and I actually giggled as I watched it. It is especially engaging when the skinny guy (Melies himself) goes against the much bigger man. What transpires is ingenious, with some masterful animation. I especially enjoyed when the big guy flattens Melies and peels him off the floor. Great fun.

In this film, master cinematic experimenter Georges Méliès uses his celebrated trickery to depict a wrestling match. The effect is like a live action cartoon. Except that this is 1901 and animated cartoons hadn't even been invented yet! In other words it's quite original. And it's really still quite amusing too. Méliès fills its short running time with a barrow load of comic invention. We have women morphing into men; a man having his head and limbs knocked off and reassembled; and a fellow who is flattened like a pancake. What this movie shows, apart from Méliès mastery of visual trickery, is his sense of humour and comic timing. Some comedy shows from a few years ago are no longer amusing, so it's really quite impressive that this feature from over one hundred years ago still manages to raise a few smiles.

This funny and imaginative Georges Méliès comedy plays off of the popularity of fairgrounds-style wrestling, adding some humorous touches and a good assortment of the kind of special camera effects for which Méliès is so well-remembered. As with so many of his features, he manages to squeeze a lot of material out of a simple premise.

As the movie begins, the wrestlers are two women, but they are only the prelude. The 'main event' features two men wrestling, with some moves and mishaps that you could normally only see in a cartoon. It bears watching closely to notice all of the visual effects that Méliès slipped in, because they go past pretty quickly at times.

The camera tricks are quite good for 1900, and show both skill and imagination, in the ideas and in carrying them off. There are only a small handful of times when the illusion does not quite come off, and most of it still holds up pretty well even now.

I watched this Méliès short movie with sheer devotion. You don't need to "change lenses" to fully enjoy this one, because the humor of it is timeless, and the action is still very much enjoyable. A high quality, cartoonish comedic experience, very entertaining and surprisingly violent. Gotta love it! Round 2... Fight!