While short and perhaps lacking in real pathos (for me), this is a great example of the sheer imaginative fun that movies rarely possess nowadays. From a horse-back sword fight in the sky to snow that turns into fruit, fantasy reigns supreme in this film. Catherine Hesslinger is captivating in the lead role (though she is even more remarkable in the less interesting "Charleston"). Seeing these silent shorts of Renoir's have helped me understand how he was capable of putting so many wonderful, unusual scenes into "The Rules of the Game"; I see how playful he was. Above all, one takes away Renoir's exuberant love for film in this movie. You can find it in the 7 film set released by Lion's Gate with remarks by Scorsese.

I have to disagree somewhat with the general assessment of Catherine Hessling's portrayal here; sure, she is no small girl but she does I think a good job of portraying the innocence, naïveté and poverty necessary to the role. If anything, this is my favorite of her early performances, perhaps excepting "Whirlpool of Fate"; I guess I buy her in the waifish role.

At any rate, this is first-rate as a visual fantasy, starting from the opening model-shots of the city walls and train, obviously fake but pretty good for the era. The early scenes of the match-girl wandering, looking in at the wealthy diners in a restaurant, are as mentioned reminiscent of Chaplin -- and for that matter of a great many silent melodramas; the later fantasy sequence as she hallucinates in the snow is more avant-garde and might remind one of both German and Russian models (probably because the French experimental films of the silent era are lesser-known today); using Mussorgsky and Wagner for the musical choices (along with a bit of Mozart's Turkish March, I think) helps cement the association.

The finish is shockingly bleak and cold, reminding us that for all of his good humor and joie de vivre, Renoir like Twain never forgot the worst in humanity.

Although this version hits on many of the points in the original story, there is no doubt that this is director Jean Renoir's very own interpretation. He perhaps outdoes Hans Christian Andersen in conveying a harsh reality with little or no recompense. The finale is heavy laden with symbolism of which might have been some influence to Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane". Renoir himself seems to have been influenced by Andersen's "Steadfast Tin Soldier" and Victor Herbert's "Babes in Toyland(1903)". And the life size dolls remind one of Maria in "Metropolis(German, 1927)". The New Year's story should be familiar to most- one sorrowful day in the life of a poor girl, without happiness at home nor on the job. This particular adaption presents a girl much older than seen elsewhere and is set in the present. Ranks a close third behind the 1937 cartoon and the near perfect 1986 British musical film. With sound effects and music, the latter used particularly well with a rendition of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", which of course(to Western fans)was also used with great results in My Name Is Nobody(Italian, 1974). The video edition viewed had fair to good picture quality.