Fantasy

Stuart Paton’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) is an epic retelling of Jules Verne’s classic novel, shot on location in the Bahaman Islands. Allen Holubar stars as the domineering Captain Nemo, who rescues the passengers of an American naval vessel after ramming them with his iron-clad, steampunk submarine, The Nautilus. Incorporating material from Verne’s Mysterious Island, the film also follows the adventures of a group of Civil War soldiers whose hot-air balloon crash lands on an exotic island, where they encounter the untamed “Child of Nature” (Jane Gail). Calling itself “The First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed,” the film is highlighted by stunning underwater photography (engineered by Ernest and George Williamson), including an underwater funeral and a deep sea diver’s battle with a giant cephalopod. In honor of the film’s extraordinary technical and artistic achievement, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.Read More »

Without having met, a famous orchestra conductor and a beautiful woman seem destined to be together. They see one another’s faces in their dreams, reflected in mirrors, and in crowded streets before finally meeting in person.Read More »

Whiling away a summer in Paris, director Jacques Rivette, working in close collaboration with his stars and coconspirators Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier, set out to rewrite the rules of cinema in the spirit of pure play—moviemaking as an anything-goes romp through the labyrinths of imagination. The result is one of the most exuberantly inventive and utterly enchanting films of the French New Wave, in which Julie (Labourier), a daydreaming librarian, meets Céline (Berto), an enigmatic magician, and together they become the heroines of a time-warping adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder-mystery melodrama. Incorporating allusions to everything from Lewis Carroll to Louis Feuillade, Céline and Julie Go Boating is both one of the all-time-great hangout comedies and a totally unique, enveloping cinematic dream space that delights in the endless pleasures and possibilities of stories.Read More »

Synopsis:
Professor Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as an alchemist in a circa-1700 university, despairs at still knowing nothing of the true secrets of nature…whereupon his old acquaintance Mephistopheles, servant of Lucifer, appears and grants him youth and a new life. But with youth, Faust’s interest is diverted from science to women. And Mephistopheles, who has taken on the guise of the elderly Faust that was, sets many snares for his young friend’s slippery soul…Read More »

In a Bavarian forest, the pupils of a boarding school are about to have their lives changed by the arrival of Vincent, a young man who can charm wild animals with his guitar. One day Vincent ventures across the lake and meets the mysterious Marianne…Read More »

Olivier is a real estate agent so broke he camps out in the apartments he is supposed to be selling. The death of his mother brings along many surprises, including a very unexpected inheritance: a run-down building on the outskirts of Paris! Faith renewed, Olivier is going to be able to pay long overdue child support, rebuild his relationship with his daughter, help his dad out and square up with his ex-wife. His hopes die out when he sees the building: it is completely run down, filthy, a burden rather than the life raft he needed. Moreover, an old woman, Liliane, is a squatter on the top floor, and he can’t flip the place with her around.Read More »

Quote:
A wondrous prostitute plies her trade while living on a boat in Hong Kong. With a superhuman libido and three loving husbands, she doggedly devotes herself to her work. Using sex to satirize the era, this film brims with intense desire.Read More »

Synopsis:
Claude Autant-Lara’s literally haunting romantic tale Sylvia and the Phantom stars Odette Joyeaux as Sylvia, an imaginative young girl who lives in an old French castle. Fascinated by a portrait of the lover of her deceased grandmother, Sylvia fantasizes about having a romance with the lover’s ghost. On Sylvia’s 16th birthday, her father decides to amuse the girl by having the “ghost” make an appearance, and to that end engages the services of three men–a valet, a ham actor and a burglar–to impersonate the wraith. Though confused by the fact that the ghost seemingly has three distinct personalities, Sylvia nonetheless falls in love with the burglar, the most handsome of the trio. Disillusioned upon learning of her father’s subterfuge, Sylvia is unfortunately unresponsive when the real ghost (poignantly enacted by comedian Jacques Tati) makes a surprise appearance. Unfairly lambasted by American critics as “worthless,” Sylvia and the Phantom has since taken its place in cinema history as one of Claude Autant-Lara’s most beguiling works. The film was adapted from a play by Alfred Adam.Read More »

Sai Moon-Kin (Tsui) is a rich man who lives with his concubines and his son and a daughter named Yiau (Loletta Lee), who is raised like a boy and is ignorant of the ways of love. Because her brother is mentally retarded, Yiau wants to be her father’s heir but feels that she needs to go to school for the required education. Her desire to attend school leads her to a love affair with a lustful young scholar (Ken Lok). Only after she is equipped by a protective chastity belt, does her father let Yiau go to school, guised in drag.Read More »