Surrealistic
see all genres ›The original Surrealists of the 1920s loved film. They loved its populism, vulgarity and potential for anarchic expression. As an experimental cinema developed, Surrealism remained a dominant spice on its menu, from the abstract psychodramas of Maya Deren to the animated nightmares of Jan Svankmajer and beyond. Then, beyond all of that, there are the plentiful films influenced by the Surrealists. Not "surrealism" exactly but something somewhat related.
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Genres / Avant-garde / Surrealistic
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Meshes of the Afternoon
One of the most important films in the history of American avant-garde cinema, Maya Deren's MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON is captivating and dream-like, filled with tinges of psychodrama, murder mystery, and film noir. In a seemingly ordinary Los Angeles home, the film's...Watch Movie
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Even Dwarfs Started Small
One of the most bizarre films ever made (and certainly the most bizarre made by Werner Herzog), EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL is an allegory in which the diminutive cast portrays the residents of an apparent asylum who rebel against authority and stage their own revolution. Full...Watch Movie
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Night Light
This is a classic Jordan animation, primarily in B/W, with touches of color. Actually, the engraved art work was filmed on color negative, so that subtle variations in tone are recorded. The mood—enhanced by John Davis' original music—is dream–like. It is both lyric and crackling, producing a...Watch Movie
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Knuckleface Jones
Hailed as being "wildly surrealist" by Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader and called "a work of demented brilliance" by Dave Nuttycombe of the DC City Paper. KNUCKLEFACE JONES won some big fans at the 2001 Slamdance Film Festival and made a lot of enemies elsewhere. It...Watch Movie
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At Land
AT LAND begins at sea. In the film's stunning opening sequence, a woman (played by filmmaker Maya Deren) emerges on shore, climbs up a pile of driftwood... and finds herself in the middle of a formal banquet. She then moves from lush, verdant jungles to seaweed-strewn beaches, stealing chess...Watch Movie
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Hotel Dallas
Playfully mixing fiction and documentary, HOTEL DALLAS is a surreal parable of communism, capitalism, and the power of art. It premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, in the Panorama program. In the 80s, "Dallas" is the most popular TV show in communist Romania. Presented as a...Watch Movie
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Concrete Night
A stunning, dream-like odyssey through a beautiful and otherworldly Helsinki over the course of one evening, CONCRETE NIGHT follows the impressionable fourteen-year-old Simo as he keeps his soon-to-be incarcerated brother company. The official Finnish submission to the Academy Awards® for Best...Watch Movie
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Moonlight Sonata
After GYMNOPEDIES, I had long wanted to animate a film specifically for a pre-selected piano piece by Eric Satie. MOONLIGHT SONATA is that film. It was totally designed for the "Gnossienne V" and the movements of the animation are timed to the overall rhythms as well as the...Watch Movie
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L'age d'or
In 1930, following their short film triumph UN CHIEN ANDALOU, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's created an hour-long avant-garde tour de force that's both an aesthetic avalanche of boldness and a withering attack on a society. L'AGE D'OR delivers a gleeful fever dream of bizarre humor and shocking...Watch Movie
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Gymnopédies
Lawrence Jordan took not only the music but the title from Erik Satie. These three pieces are probably the most famous of Satie's musical series. The precise sense of the word "gymnopédies" is unknown. Etymologically it denotes the goings on of named (gymno) children (paidos); yet here the word...Watch Movie
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Ghosts Before Breakfast
The Dadaists were closely attuned to cinema's native surrealism. And so it is fitting that Hans Richter's GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST should return to so many of the medium's first loves: trick shots, fisticuffs and slapstick are all thrown in the dada blender, unfettered from the...Watch Movie
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Stille Nacht II
A three minute animated choreography with an ethereal pop soundtrack by the remarkable band His Name Is Alive. With a typically eccentric cast of a ragged doll, a white rabbit and a manic ping-pong ball, Stephen and Timothy Quay construct a hypnotic, beguiling and vaguely menacing ballet,...Watch Movie
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A Phantasy
In this surrealist triptych, Norman McLaren uses a variety of techniques to create dreamlike sequences that transport the audience into an intriguing imaginary world. The central part of this film is taken directly from SPHERES, which was co-directed by McLaren and René Jodoin.Watch Movie
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Immer Zu
IMMER ZU is an elliptical, experimental animated film which evokes a mysterious undercover world of secret messages, cryptic language and indecipherable codes. Shot in luminous black and white, IMMER ZU uses miniature two and three dimensional figures and sets, as well as shadow puppetry, to...Watch Movie
