Fantasy

Synopsis:
Although the film is set specifically in 1903, its atmosphere and tension may be more generally characterised as “before the revolution”. The event in question is the Mexican revolution of the years 1910–17, which overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, under whom the population had become even more impoverished. Las vueltas del Citrillo is the name of a shabby bar where the socially disinherited drink and exchange incredible stories and fantasies. Individuals with no future or even present meet here to drown their lives in alcohol and tell their tales of the dead and apparitions. In the atmosphere of hallucination and drunkenness, however, a central “sober” story of love, jealousy and betrayal also unfolds.Read More »

Quote:
This scintillating screen version of Mozart’s beloved opera shows Bergman’s deep knowledge of music and his gift for expressing it in filmic terms. Casting some of Europe’s finest soloists—among them Josef Köstlinger, Ulrik Cold, and Håkan Hagegård—the director lovingly recreated the baroque theater of the Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm to stage the story of the prince Tamino (Köstlinger) and his zestful sidekick Papageno (Hagegård), who seek to save a beautiful princess (Irma Urrila) from the clutches of evil. A celebration of love, forgiveness, and the brotherhood of man, The Magic Flute is considered by many to be the most exquisite opera film ever made.Read More »

Quote:
A newspaper obit writer, impatient to move ahead at his job, wishes he could know the news before it happens. One night, Old Pop Benson grants him that power, in the form of the next day’s newspaper. At first it only gets him in trouble, but also brings him closer to the pretty girl in a fortune-telling routine. By the third tomorrow’s paper, he’s sure he’s got this whole future business in the bag — reporting advance scoops, picking sure winners at the race track — when he reads a very final headline: the news of his own death.Read More »

People from all walks of life (a high-school student, a middle-aged businessman, a yakuza chief, etc.) all receive mysterious messages from loved ones who were killed 3 months earlier in a shipwreck. They are instructed to go to a small island in the Inland Sea that evening. At the stroke of midnight, the lost ship emerges from the sea and they are given a brief time to say their final words to their lost loved ones, before the deceased must once again board the ship and it sinks back into the depths. (Summary from IMDB)Read More »

Quote:
Injured in a car crash, Edna Mae McCauley has an out-of-body experience where she sees faces from her past trying to guide her into the hereafter. But instead she returns to life. Soon after she discovers that she now has the power to heal. Back in the Mid-Western town of her childhood, she begins a faith-healing mission and tries to use her powers for good. But she must also deal with the condemnation of fundamentalists and a boyfriend who becomes religiously crazed and tries to kill her.Read More »

Criterion wrote:
One of Agnès Varda least-seen films is also one of her most fascinating: an eccentrically imaginative science-fiction fantasia that touches on human nature, free will, and the creative process. Working with major stars for the first time on a feature film, Varda casts Michel Piccoli as a writer and Catherine Deneuve as his silent wife, a couple who relocate to the island of Noirmoutier (a longtime second home for Varda and her husband, Jacques Demy) where strange goings-on hint at a sinister force controlling the minds and actions of the residents. Slipping between “reality” and fiction, genre spectacle and avant-garde experimentation, Les créatures is a beguiling, endlessly inventive exploration of the mysterious alchemy that transforms life into art.Read More »

Quote:
Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.Read More »

Synopsis: A mountain man from Hokkaido comes to Tokyo in search of the woman he loves, but has to brave the city’s dystopic underworld of gladiatorial fights and underground opera to rescue her.Read More »

A 1985 adaptation of the Brothers Grimm’s Mother Hulda short story directed by Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko. A fairy tale about a grandma who cares for snow and a boy who isn’t afraid of death.Read More »