Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Dreams were a common subject back in the early days of movies and usually the films looked like there is a perfect wonderful moment at first for the protagonist, but then he wakes up next to his hideous wife. Same goes for this one. Sadly, for the hero, it happens the very moment when he is about to kiss the stunning girl from early on. Actually, the hideous wife in this one almost looks like a guy in the end. A bit of an odd film. Unfortunately, there is no real creativity in here as this was done many times before. Still not a bad film by any means. At least the ending was somewhat entertaining. The director here is Ferdinand Zecca, also a French silent film pioneer, but not half as famous as Méliès and Lumière. All in all, not recommended.

JoeytheBrit As others have noted, this is an early example of an exact copy of one studio's film being made by another - in this case, the French giants Pathe Frere rip-off British filmmaker George Albert Smith. It was a common practice back in the early days of cinema when film-making was subject to even more piracy than the internet is today.The film itself is quite amusing - in fact it is probably slightly better than the original thanks to a much brisker pace, and a prettier girl in the first scene which makes for a funnier contrast with the old hag (who is probably a man in drag) in the second. It's certainly still quite amusing even today, nearly 110 years later.

MartinHafer It just so happens that the same night I watched this very early silent short, I also watched a film by George Albert Smith that was made one year earlier--entitled "Let Me Dream Again". And, low and behold, the two films were nearly 100% identical!! This film (Rêve et réalité) was definitely not inspired from Smith's--it was a complete rip-off---being a wonderful example of early plagiarism. This was not a unique thing, as there were so many tiny studios in the early days and copying others' films wasn't unusual. But, in this case it's more than re-making the other film--it's stealing it.Regardless of the spotty pedigree, this still is a pretty funny film. It features an old guy making out with a pretty young lady--and it all turns out to be too good to be true. This is one of the few early films that still will get you to laugh today--no small accomplishment.

Snow Leopard The idea of a story involving "Rêve et Réalité" (Dream and Reality) was a familiar one in very early cinema, and despite how old this film is, it was not the first to use the concept. But it's a watchable version of the idea, and is mildly amusing, at least as far as the simple story allows it to be. The story is really just one key gag, but the movie sets it up efficiently enough, without wasting time or energy. The idea itself can also be (and was later) used more thoughtfully, but this particular feature only went as far as it had already been developed by others.Technically, it's relatively polished for its time, with the dissolve effect working well as one picture transforms into another. If the idea itself had not already been a familiar one, this could be considered as pretty good. Even as it is, it's at least worth seeing if you are interested in these very old movies, and it's understandable if cinema's pioneers sometimes wanted to try their hands at filming ideas that others had already used. They certainly had better reasons to do so than do today's film-makers when they continually recycle material that wasn't all that good in the first place. This feature is fairly well-crafted; it just isn't anything really new even for the time.