Review of The Devilish Tenant

I've seen quite a few Melies film over the last couple of years - mostly in roughly chronological order - and watching them in this way drives home just how impossible he found it to adapt to the changing times. Like Emile Reynaud before him, Melies failed to evolve, and essentially ended up repeating the same story over and over by simply varying small details. He could easily have staged this film, in which the devilish tenant of the title produces the furniture for his new dwelling from a carpetbag, as a basic magic show, because there isn't really much of a story. Melies film career would pretty much be dead within another five years, which is a sad thing - had he been able to harness that incredible energy that is evident in every frame of this stencil-coloured film to develop all aspects of his filmmaking talents he might have gone on indefinitely...