The Little Match Seller

The Little Match Seller is a 1902 British short silent drama film, directed by James Williamson, retelling the classic 1845 Hans Christian Andersen fable of the sad life and tragic death of a little match seller.

This major fiction film of the period was, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "a serious attempt at depicting a person's inner emotional life on film through purely visual means (there is no onscreen text of any kind), using trick effects not to provoke laughter but for serious dramatic reasons.

The film, which is just over 3 minutes long, depicts a young girl selling matchsticks on Christmas Eve.

In the flame of each match, she has visions of Christmas scenes including a tree decked in tinsel and a table full of food.

This film "is a very faithful adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 1846 fable (which is brief enough to suggest that the original could have been read aloud during screenings) and, instead of the other films' scrupulously realistic presentation, Williamson here resorts to numerous special effects, mostly in the form of superimpositions."

The Little Match Seller