Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The Worst Film Ever

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This six minute offering involves a man who apparently rents a room. All he has with him is a carpetbag. He begins pulling things out of the bag and placing them around the room. They include paintings, chairs, a table, people, a bureau, and on and on. Yet it all comes out of a tiny bag. There is some wonderful animation here and the pacing is dynamite. Of course, the landlord doesn't think much of what he's done to the place. So much fun.

If you compare this 1909 6-minute movie to Georges Méliès, you will see that they have basically nothing in common anymore. the reason was probably that film was developing so quickly into new directions that the old legends had trouble to keep up with the medium. First of all, this is not a one man show anymore like almost everything else he did. Actually Méliès own son plays a character here. And then there are the colors of course, probably the most innovative factor. Still, all of this did not really save this film. I was not too impressed watching this and certainly do not consider it among Méliès finest works. This was already almost at the end of Méliès career and when a couple years later sound became a factor, he did not go along with the new changes, but simply stopped making movies. But it's fine that way. he still left us an admirable body of work. Nonetheless, I do not consider "The Diabolic Tenant" among his most outstanding achievements.

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...

Devilish Tenant, The (1909) aka Locataire diabolique, Le *** (out of 4)Georges Melies film about a man who rents an apartment and furnishes the entire thing with one box. It's easy to see how the trickery was done in this film but that doesn't take away from the fun. The real highlight is the wonderful ending of how the man finally gets rid of everything.In early 2008 a box set with over 170 Meiles films will be released and it's certainly long overdue.