Mad God opens with a firebrand-lit edifice towering into the sky, until its peak is struck by lightning and the whole structure is enveloped in black storm clouds. In case the building’s identity as the Biblical Tower of Babel is missed, this is followed by a portentous quote from the Old Testament (Leviticus 26:27-32) listing…
A Town Called Panic (Panique au village) first published by EyeforFilm, 5 Oct 2010 For all its bric-à-brac simplicity, A Town Called Panic (Panique au village) has been around for a long time in numerous forms. Starting life in 1991 as Stéphane Aubier‘s graduation short, this rustic papier-mâché world of weird was revisited a decade…
Alice first published by EyeforFilm “Stick to the text!”, the King of Hearts demands – in vain – near the end of Jan Svankmajer‘s Alice, as the titular heroine (played by Kristýna Kovoutová) refuses to read out her scripted statement in court, let alone to bow to his or the Queen’s arbitrary authority. The King’s…
First published, a golden age ago, by Movie Gazette A year after his striking cinematic debut with Un Chien Andalou, Luis Buñuel worked for the second (and last) time with Salvador Dali, and the result was L’Âge d’Or, their crowning collaborative achievement and a masterpiece of celluloid surrealism. At four times the length of Un Chien…
(Ancient) review first published in Movie Gazette “Once upon a time…” reads the caption in French, as though we are about to watch a fairy tale. A man smokes a cigarette and carefully whets a razor, testing its keenness against his thumb. Stepping onto a balcony, he looks up at a thin cloud passing over…
The Hourglass Sanatorium first published by Film4 Synopsis: In Wojciech Has’ adaptation of Bruno Schulz’s short stories, time plays tricks and dreams come to life as a man visits his not quite dead father in an otherworldly sanatorium. Review: “Everything is muddled up, Father. One needs such patience to find the right meaning in this tangle.” So says…