Rene Clair’s first feature (1923), known in French as Paris qui dort, is a remarkable early SF effort about a mad scientist who immobilizes Parisexcept for a watchman on the Eiffel Tower and a group of airplane passengers, who roam about the city while everyone and everything else is frozen. A brilliant meditation on some of the differences between film and still photography as well as an engaging comic story that is full of poetic notions, this is one of the landmarks of French silent cinema. (JR)