La Tentation de Saint-Antoine

This is apparently one of the first religious films ever made if not the first. It tells the story of St. Anthony (who, no one is actually sure ever existed) and his ordeals as a hermit. Now you'd THINK that hermit meant he was always alone...but she-demons come to him in this version of his life story and try to tempt him away from God. One even aparates on the giant crucifix in his cave...but ultimately an angel appears and drives away all these creatures and the holy man is left in peace.

This is very entertaining and despite a run time of only about 70 seconds, it's pretty much complete. Weird...though not nearly as weird as paintings of St. Anthony's tempation by Bosch and his contemporaries!

Nothing particularly interesting happens that you cannot see in some of his better work, and the themes are similar, with a slight twist. Nothing objectively terrible though, so a 4/10

Considering how The Temptation of Saint Anthony is such a popular artistic subject and was used as a motif in many haunting classical paintings, it's a bit weird to consider that it never has been adapted to film with the sole exception of this one minute short directed by Georges Melies. (According to Wikipedia, there was also a previous short made by Eugene Pirou, but is nowhere to be found)

Done properly, the story of Saint Anthony could be made into a great religious horror film (It could take the Flaubert novel as inspiration). At least it would be a nice variation for this subgenre instead of yet another exorcist film.

Temptation of Saint Anthony, The (1898)

*** (out of 4)

aka Tentation de Saint Antoine

A strange religious film from director Melies takes place in what appears to be a cave where St. Anthony is looking at Jesus, attached to the cross, when the devil tries to temp him with various women. It's hard to tell if this was meant to be a serious religious film or just a way for Meiles to bring laughs with his special effects. I'm going to guess that this was meant to be more serious than anything else as it contains lesser special effects than we've seen from the director in previous films. There's one sequence where Anthony goes to pray to Jesus but he turns into a woman as well. The effects aren't anything special but this remains a pretty unique film.

It is a little interesting - Just over a minute long so it doesn't take long to watch the film but it's only worth watching if you want to see Jesus turn into a vixen and quickly shooed away by St. Antony.

6/10