The most famous of Feuillade's silent serial thrillers is now a film of
mostly historical interest - but that interest is considerable.
Compared to the contemporary work of DW Griffith, both editing and
camera movement are strictly functional, and the film is pretty
laboured and slow-paced even by the standards of 1915. But Feuillade's
ideas are much more interesting than his style, and scenes such as a dead
man coming to life in a prison mortuary have an eerie power which
anticipates the sinister poetry of Fritz Lang. And in fusing realistic
settings (location shooting in Paris) with fantastic events, the film
is a key work in the creation of a specifically cinematic world.
