Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Angelic and demonic serpentine dance from dawn of cinema. Hand-colored frame by frame. Lumière no. 765 or 765.1 (colorized, different dancer?).
A landmark early cinema artifact — hand-colored frame by frame, this serpentine dance film represents one of the most visually inventive achievements of the 1890s. The cinematography and coloring technique are genuinely exceptional for the era and remain visually striking today, earning a well-above-average mark. Novelty is equally high: the hand-coloring process was painstaking and singular, and the film's dual angelic/demonic framing gives it a conceptual distinctiveness rare for proto-cinema. Plot is essentially nonexistent as a structured narrative — it's a filmed dance performance — so it scores lowest. Acting (performance) is serviceable dance exhibition rather than expressive craft. The ending is simply the dance concluding with no particular dramatic resolution.