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Amidst desert landscapes and splendid ocean views, a dog and a parrot appear. They emphasise the cosmic rhythm of day and night.
Amidst desert landscapes and splendid ocean views, a dog and a parrot appear. They emphasise the cosmic rhythm of day and night. Departing from Zabriskie Point, the film surreptitiously crosses over into Mexico, its creative geography never far from our cinematic memory.Read More »
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Delightfully witty and with a Kafkaesque spin, Oldřich Lipský‘s brilliant film Happy End (1967) is a quirky little gem from the archives of cinematic history. Crafted with unrelenting precision and grace, Stastny Konec (to give it its Czech name) really gives its audience a taste of the bleak humour renowned by Czech comedy. Without spoiling too much, the film concerns the wondrous (or tragic) life-story of the kind-hearted (or vengeful) butcher Bedrich Frydrych (Vladmír Mensík), his various ups and downs with his wife Julie (Jaroslava Obermaierová) and the tribulations of a surreal existence in reverse.Read More »
Dadascope is a comprehensive portrait of the Dada movement with its specific techniques of sound and visual clash, word puns, chess, dice and other games of chance. Richter stated, “There is no story, no psychological implication except such as the onlooker puts into the imagery. But it is not accidental either, more a poetry of images built with and upon associations. In other words the film allows itself the freedom to play upon the scale of film possibilities, freedom for which Dada always stood – and still stands.” Read More »
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My films are like that: in a room, but looking out onto an open sky. I can’t really say it except to repeat that Bresson note, ‘that without a thing changing, everything is different.’ The film exists. The fiction is set up, and we believe in it. The justness of the agreement leads us to believe it, because everything plays equally at being a sign. That’s the arrangement of the elements. It’s an act of faith. La vallée close is just this: elements treated above all as if in a documentary that, without being changed, portray the story and reveal between them the elements of fiction. But above all seen as they are, insignificant. And then in the relations they set up, they can satisfy our desire for a story. – Jean-Claude RousseauRead More »
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The 16mm test roll for James Benning’s feature-length film TEN SKIES. 74.78 is part of Mike Plante’s Lunchfilm series of commissioned shorts (made for the cost of a lunch between Plante and filmmaker James Benning).Read More »
Shooting against the staggering beauty of the Moroccan landscape, from the rugged terrain of the Atlas Mountains to the stark and surreal emptiness of the desert, with its encroaching sands and abandoned film sets, a director abandons his own film set and descends into a hallucinatory, perilous adventure of cruelty, madness and malevolence. A Paul Bowles story combined with observational footage forms a multi-layered excavation into the illusion of cinema itself.Read More »
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From the same desert, toward the same dark sky, my tired eyes open on the silver star, forever; but the Three Wise Men never stir, the Kings of life, the heart, the soul, the mind. When will we go, over mountains and shores, to hail the birth of new labor, new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition – to be the first to adore! – Christmas on Earth!
– Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell (1873)Read More »
THE THIEVING HAND is one of the cleverest combinations of silent comedy and vaudeville-style talent Savant has seen. It’s the simple tale of a magic ‘artificial’ arm that, once in place in a host socket, begins stealing incessantly. Made probably only to provoke laughter, this weirdness might have something to say about the concept of charity. 1908.Read More »
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A charming tale of murder, perversity and narrative echoes told through shots of barking dogs and a La jetée-like series of stills.Read More »