Fantasy

Synopsis
A rock and roll horror fantasy where we meet the immortal Louise and her beloved Charlie. Unfortunately, due to Louise’s supernatural origins, every man she sleeps with must die! Charlie was Louise’s first love from the 1920’s, who she accidentally killed before realizing what she is: a descendant of Lilith, the mother of all demons! This race of women must feed on the souls of men once every full moon, or else they will menstruate to death. Now a hundred years later, Charlie returns reincarnated, and Louise must struggle with staying away from the love of her life, or risk losing him a second time! PMS has never been this deadly!
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A major foreshadowing of Paradjanov’s later work, the visually prodigious Andriesh is an entertaining tale about a young shepherd who is given a magic shawm (a flutelike instrument) to help him conquer his foes. With its flying sheep, evil wizards, and storm demons—all captured in the gloriously artifical palette of fifties Soviet color stock—Andriesh has the kind of eye-popping, whirlwind weirdness of Paradjanov’s last films, Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib.Read More »

The west Coast of Iceland, late summer 1936. On a desolate farm, believed to be cursed since the 14th century, a tragic fate is about to befall the French exploration ship Pourquoi-pas. When the ship is wrecked just offshore it seems the crew is witnessing the old curse in full force. Hrefna, a young girl on the farm, projects herself and her family, with all the power of a child’s imagination, back to the 14th century in order to change the course of destiny.Read More »

Merlin, Arrieta’s one feature shot on 35mm, is an adaptation of Cocteau’s play “Knights of the Round Table.”Read More »

Quote:
Strange and magical stop-motion fairy-tale for adults, with obsessive-compulsive attention to repetitive details similar to Svankmajer. This is much gentler than Svankmajer though, and holds back its meaning and symbolism just out of reach. Allegedly took Christiane Cegavske 12 years to put together, and the pedantic work on every little repetitive detail feels unusual for a female director. The movie starts and ends with a living doll, tea, cake and a symbolic egg that finds its way into this fantasy world of strange creatures that all become enchanted by the egg and what it brings. Aristocratic mice pay the Oak Dwellers (some kind of mammal with beaks) to make them a female doll but they refuse to hand it over when done, impregnating it with the egg by stitching it into its belly and hanging the doll on a tree. Read More »

Plot Outline: Strings is a mythological story about the son of a king, Hal Tara, who sets out on a journey to revenge the death of his father. To his surprise he discovers the truth of his own people – and where he least expects it – he finds true love.

Actually this film is a bit short on plot but is technically stunning, and incorporates a number of unusual sight-gags, such as the portcullis to the walled city rising (not lowering) to keep people in (because everyone is a puppet and the raised portcullis blocks their strings)…Read More »

The collected work known as “One Thousand and One Nights” survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience’s ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.Read More »

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Stanley Kubrick envisioned Eyes Wide Shut as an Odyssean chronicle of marital drift. After a series of absurd encounters with the unseemly, naughty bourgeois and the diseased rejects that pander to their ludicrous peccadilloes, Tom Cruise’s wandering soul gets the hint: don’t stray! Jean-Claude Brisseau’s subversive Secret Things is nowhere near as structurally rigorous as Kubrick’s swan song, but it certainly feels more daring. First, think Celine and Julie Go Masturbating. On what appears to be a lonely stage, the sexy Nathalie (Coralie Revel) begins to pleasure herself. Then the delirious swell of an opera piece, perfectly timed to the movement of Brisseau’s camera, which pans to the right to reveal a roomful of bar patrons, including innocent barmaid Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou), ogling the spectacle of Nathalie’s uninhibited libido. Read More »

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The story of the student who sells his shadow for money and power only to find that the shadow reappears at certain moments and brings disaster upon him, should be well known from the original and the first remake. Robison however, introduces some new twists and angles to the story which should not be told here.Read More »