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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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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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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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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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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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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Visitation
The animated film VISITATION unwinds through a dark landscape of unending life and death; steeped in the alchemical and inner dream life the film explores a black and white landscape of gothic figures who enact evolving metaphysical dramas. Surrealistic and strange, cast in grainy 16mm images,...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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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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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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Manuelle Labor
A woman with an oddly hairy belly gives birth to a pair of hands in Marie Losier’s giddily inventive "portrait" of filmmaker Guy Maddin, done as a collaboration between the two iconoclasts. A longtime fan of Maddin, Losier (best known for other inventive portraits of underground film icons like...Watch Movie
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The Apoplectic Walrus
Joanna wanted a film on the collages of Max Ernst, and I wanted to make a tribute to the two men who most influenced my film work at the beginning: Max Ernst (collage) and Luis Bunuel (surrealism in cinema). I had written a book of about one-hundred pages in the surrealist...Watch Movie
