Fantasy

  • Josef von Báky – Münchhausen AKA The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943)

    1941-1950AdventureFantasyGermanyJosef von BákyThird Reich Cinema

    This lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning location shooting.Read More »

  • Onur Ünlü – Sen Aydinlatirsin Geceyi AKA Thou Gild’st the Even (2013)

    2011-2020DramaFantasyOnur ÜnlüTurkey

    Cemal, a moustachioed embodiment of awkwardness and anguish, inhabits an Anatolian rural village where everyone is gifted with some sort of super power.

    Turkish writer-director Onur Ünlü’s surreal and fantastical fable follows a barber who survives a suicide attempt and finds himself falling in love, succumbing to murderous jealousy, and trying to make sense of life in a village where his neighbours are invisible, immortal, or possess the ability to stop time. In this village, the fantastic is never far from the quotidian. Amongst Cemal’s neighbours are a giant, an immortal, an invisible woman, and a bookseller who can stop time by clapping her hands.Read More »

  • Hark Tsui – Shu Shan – Xin Shu shan jian ke AKA Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)

    1981-1990FantasyHark TsuiHong KongMartial Arts

    In the fifth century, constant civil war scars western China. To escape death, Ti, a young scout, jumps through a crevice in the Zu mountains where he meets and becomes the apprentice of Ting Yin, a spiritual man with great fighting powers. They encounter a monk, Hsiao Yu, also a great fighter and a good man, but unfriendly to Ting. Because Ting and Hsiao can’t work together, it falls to Ti to team with Hsiao’s acolyte Yi Chen: they have 49 days to travel far to claim two swords that are the only weapons that can defeat the Blood Demon, who has decided the wreak havoc on the world. They get help from Long Brows, Ting falls in love with a countess, and civil war still rages.Read More »

  • Angelos Frantzis – To Oneiro tou Skylou aka A Dog’s Dream (2004)

    2001-2010Angelos FrantzisFantasyGreeceMystery

    The film tells the story of a magical night in Athens. A man has a dream that concerns a strange robbery. When he returns home, he finds that all his belongings have been stolen in an equally strange manner. The man calls the police and an experienced cop tries to solve the case with rather unorthodox methods. But as the night drags on the mystery gradually appears to spread throughout the city. Strange incidents lead the heroes on a journey that appears to escape reality and meet the world of the dream.Read More »

  • Paul Kenworthy & Ralph Wright – A True-Life Fantasy: Perri (1957)

    1951-1960DocumentaryFantasyPaul KenworthyRalph WrightUSA

    Quote:
    Perri is a 1957 film from Walt Disney Productions, based on Felix Salten’s 1938 Perri: The Youth of a Squirrel. It was the company’s fifth feature entry in their True-Life Adventures series, and the only one to be labeled a True Life Fantasy. In doing so, the Disney team combined the documentary aspects of earlier efforts with fictional scenarios and characters.Read More »

  • Arielle Dombasle – Chassé-croisé (1982)

    1981-1990Arielle DombasleArthouseFantasyFrance

    Quote:
    A failed musician wanders in Paris, with a crossword puzzle as only guide. An initiatory journey between Good and Evil.Read More »

  • Karel Reisz – Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966)

    1961-1970DramaFantasyKarel ReiszUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    From Karel Reisz, the renowned director of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Night Must Fall, Isadora, The Gambler, Who’ll Stop the Rain, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Sweet Dreams, comes this cult classic starring screen great Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, Mary, Queen of Scots) and legendary character actor David Warner (Cross of Iron, Perfect Friday) in one of his few starring roles. A gorilla-fixated artist with distinctly anarchist tendencies, Morgan (Warner) tries to regain the affections of his divorced wife Leonie (Redgrave) by variously kidnapping her, attempting to blow up her future mother-in-law and attacking her fiancé (Robert Stephens, Sherlock Holmes of Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes). Cut with scenes from King Kong and Tarzan films, Morgan’s depiction of madness, dark humor and vintage performances made it one of the wildest, funniest and most provocative comedies of the ’60s. Nominated for two Oscars: Best Actress in a Leading Role (Redgrave) and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Jocelyn Rickards).Read More »

  • Veit Harlan – Hanna Amon (1951)

    1951-1960DramaFantasyGermanyVeit Harlan

    Hanna Amon and her brother Thomas live on an estate they’ve inherited from their parents. Local veterinarian Brunner loves Hanna from afar, and Thomas is in love with the daughter of the local mayor. Love, however, doesn’t always mean happiness, as both Hanna and Thomas are soon to find out.Read More »

  • Maurice Tourneur – The Blue Bird (1918)

    1911-1920ClassicsFantasyMaurice TourneurUSA

    Quote:
    Wildly inventive and effortlessly enchanting, Maurice Tourneur’s legendary 1918 fantasy The Blue Bird combines spectacular costumes, lavish sets, ingenious camera effects and disarmingly naturalistic performances in a wholly original American silent film masterpiece. Tourneur’s extravagant vision anticipates the spellbinding German Expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, made the following year, while affectionately evoking the whimsical theatricality of Georges Méliès’s pioneering cinematic genius.Read More »

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