Although Georges Méliès invented the genre, fantasy has never been French cinema's specialty. There are a few notable exceptions of course (Jean Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête", Georges Franju's "La tête contre les murs", François Ozon's "Ricky" are a few examples), but on the whole it looks as if Gallic creators are more at ease with the description of the visible than the evocation of the invisible.