#732 – A Voyage Around A Star (1906)

A Voyage Around A Star (1906)

Film review #732

Director: Gaston Velle

SYNOPSIS: An astronomer becomes obsessed with the idea of reaching the stars; most notably the women in the stars he has seen through his telescope. he designs a bubble that will take him into the sky to meet her, but finds a host of troubles when he gets there…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: A Voyage Around A Star is a 1906 short sci-fi film. The story involves an astronomer who looks through his telescope and sees a beautiful woman that lives in the stars. he invents a giant bubble to fit in and float upwards through the sky. The story is essentially what we have seen in other short films such as The Astronomer’s Dream (1897) and Trip to the Moon (1902), and there’s not really anything original in an astronomer travelling to space. There’s some nice fantasy imagery and effects for the time, but nothing ground-breaking. Perhaps it seems a little for fantasy and silly than the others, particularly with the giant soap bubble being the invention used to float amongst the stars.

When the astronomer arrives at his destination, he angers the bearded man (God?) with his philandry, and he is cast out to fall back to Earth. This scene has some nice choreography and scenery, but not much else. As the astronomer descends back to Earth using his umbrella, it breaks and he falls to impale himself on a weather vane, which is where the film ends. This is probably the most unique thing about this film: it’s quite a dark ending to see a man impaled straight through the body, but I think it’s still meant to be funny and light. Overall though, there’s nothing remarkable in this film that wasn’t already done even in these early days of cinema.