A modern reimagining of the trick film, combining the love of spectacle, the artist's process and the dark state of today's politics.
A magical adventure begins Once upon a time, within a vast and wild forest there was a fantastic Kingdom called Rodencia, a place where wonderful creatures and powerful wizards lived. It's the story of adventures and love of a small mouse called Edam, a clumsy magician's apprentice and the beautiful and confident mouse Brie, who will have to face many dangerous obstacles in order to obtain the power of the princess's tooth and defeat the troop of rats commanded by the evil Rotex who invades Rodencia (the peaceful kingdom of mice), in order to dominate them and take their treasure. In the middle of the forest; the magic of the light and the darkness, the love and resentment will face together. Edam and Rotex will fight and only one will leave victorious.
This film begins with the invocation of 'almighty god' at a river where several people are gathered. The child god Krishna rises out of the water astride the demon snake Kaliya. Then we see Yashoda as she rocks the sleeping Krishna's crib and imagines the god as Gopala. The next scene shows Kamsa fantasizing about Krishna threateningly duplicated many times around him. Kamsa then imagines himself dead as his severed head rises up and descends again. People of all castes pay obeisance to the deity with the title-card: 'may this humble offering be accepted by the Lord'.
A series of trick film hallucinations and scary doubling effects result when Patachon smokes an opium cigarette.
In an effort to secure a promised inheritance, Onésime invents a time machine that speeds up activity on earth, hyper-animates men and machines, and telescopes the human life-cycle.
A love doctor successfully produces men on order for needy women, until his system for delivering them – through the mail as puppets in canisters - goes awry.
A cheeky female jester uses the smoke of her cigarette to make things appear and disappear. After showing her talents by playing with a chair or a dog, she lets clowns appear; one female, and two male. The male clowns fight each other over the girl who gets changed over and over again by the jester.
Pickpock is behind bars. But more elusive than Arsène Lupin, no chain resists him and he plays with policemen like a cat with mice. After having masterfully taken them for a ride, having brought them down to an effigy, he rolls them up and throws them out the window. But the policemen come back to life and the chase goes on. Pickpock, caught a second time, locked up behind heavy bars, finds a new way of escaping and imprisoning in turn the policemen.
A mischievous witch uses her dark magic on an innocent cyclist until he is all confused. He is forced to pedal backwards and at the same time, his bike changes shape anytime the witch wants it to. (stumfilm.dk)
A woman enters a room with a man. She creates a duplicate of him and changes his personality by throwing his clothes from one man to the next.
Cretinetti sidesteps his creditors using several amazing tricks.
A man in a suit and cap stops in front of the display of a bookseller, finds and flips… "Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells! Fascinated by the subject, he buys the book and goes home with the intention to test the invisibility formula described by the author…
By the time this short subject came out, Segundo de Chomon had bested Georges Méliès at his own game. His camera magic was as fully developed as Méliès. His sense of humor was sharper and his scenes had invaded the real world. Many of the shots of this split-reel short about a bizarre group of tramp musicians who disappear into and out of drums, beach umbrellas and whatnots are shot in the street and the others are on stages decorated to look realistic.
Female magicians turn people into origami roosters and vice versa.
The first scene presents before the astonished eyes of the spectators a solid piece of marble, which the minute it is placed on a table seems to take life, and one can follow a snake-like line branding on the polished face of the stone the name of the house of Pathé Frères. As soon as this stone has been engraved, as by magic, a handsome young lady appears with a huge lump of clay covered with a cloth. As soon as the cloth is removed from the soft mass it starts whirling and turning as if stricken mad, and one is asking one's self what all the contentions are going to lead to, when the vague shape of an animal not yet discernible seems to appear, and before one has time to make one's mind as to the category of brutes to which it belongs one sees the form of a remarkably well made orang-utan modelled out of the clay, who calmly smokes his pipe. Then the statue is removed by the same winning young lady and another covered block of the same substance is carried forward.
A chef comes into the kitchen and throws a lot of rags on the floor: he then casts a spell over them, and immediately they take the form of human beings, and dance a wild saraband around the place. After performing many unique tricks they disappear into space, and are replaced by a group of knives and forks, pans, kettles and spoons. (Moving Picture World)
A pickpocket manages to escape the police through a series of fantastic tricks.
A moon-woman shakes a Pierot costume and manifests a Pierot clown. She does this four more until there are five Pierots crowded on the ledge of the moon. They fall to the earth and dance like tops turning one by one into Columbine maidens.
Experimental color film that shows a magician and his assistant making objects and people appear and disappear. Then they stack up some blocks and a moving picture of a little girl appears on them.