Allegory
see all genres ›The allegory or parable frames basic human wisdoms in storytelling action and metaphor. This type of film has a lesson to teach, though the path getting there may be fraught with fantasy or gallows humor.
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Genres / Fantasy / Allegory
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In the Beginning Was the End
"De-evolution," the idea that mankind is on a downward spiral of regression, was initially espoused by deconstructionist rockers Devo as a joke until the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students at Kent State (including band members Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh),...Watch Movie
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L'assenza
By chance, a man sees his double in an Italian film of the early 1960s. Fascinated, he returns to see the film again and again, only to find the images changing with every viewing. Becoming addicted to his own image, he travels to Paris for another encounter with his doppelganger. In the...Watch Movie
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Heart of Glass
After the international successes of AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL (aka THE ENIGMA OF KASPER HAUSER), Werner Herzog baffled many admirers with this cryptic parable. An 18th century Bavarian mountain village is famous for its production of "ruby glass"...Watch Movie
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Faust
From acclaimed director Alexander Sokurov, FAUST is an hallucinatory period piece set in the early 19th century and inspired by Goethe's famous play. Employing elaborate camera movements, a layered soundscape, intricate production design and spectacular locations, FAUST conjures a unique and...Watch Movie
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Nostalghia
NOSTALGHIA is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and...Watch Movie
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The Iron Crown
A deadly tournament for a princess' hand, a mystic "golden deer," babies switched at birth, a raised-by-lions quasi-Tarzan; everything but the proverbial kitchen sink was thrown into this extravagant fantasy adventure. Loin-clothed foundling Arminio (Massimo Girotti) leaves the jungle he grew up...Watch Movie
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Marwencol
Outside a small bar in Kingston, New York, Mark Hogancamp was beaten nearly to death, his memories wiped away. Seeking recovery, he builds Marwencol, a miniature World War II-era town filled with doll versions of his friends, fantasies and even his attackers. As he documents the town’s dramas...Watch Movie
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In a Box
A short animated film of line drawings suggesting the predicament of people who are "boxed in" by life. It takes only a few deft strokes of the animator's pen to show how people's lives are limited by their view of things. The box they are in may be uncomfortable in many ways, but they rush back...Watch Movie
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The Book of Life
In this darkly comic retelling of the Apocalypse, Jesus (Martin Donovan) arrives at JFK airport with intriguing assistant, Magdalena (PJ Harvey). While the world ponders the meaning of this second coming, Jesus battles the Devil for human souls, risks the wrath of God and...Watch Movie
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Terror is a Man
Following after the example of Val Lewton’s 1940s horror films, this drive-in ready adaptation of H.G. Wells’ THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU wrings psychological anguish and terse visual effects from its low-budget expressionism. The film begins with a naïve sailor (William Fitzgerald) washing up...Watch Movie
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Alice
When Alice follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland, so begins this dream expedition into the astonishing landscape of childhood, through many dangerous adventures, and ultimately to Alice's trial before the King and Queen of Hearts. Czech animator Jan Svankmajer has created a masterpiece of...Watch Movie
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The White Meadows
The otherworldly salt islands of Iran’s Lake Urmia provide the fittingly surreal setting for director Mohammad Rasoulof’s mesmerizing fable. "I've come to listen to people’s heartaches and take away tears," says an old boatman as he rows among the gray waters and white salt...Watch Movie
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Street of Crocodiles
Stephen and Timothy Quay's masterpiece, STREET OF CROCODILES is adapted from the book by Polish writer Bruno Schulz and was their first film shot on 35mm. A museum keeper spits into the eyepiece of an ancient peep-show and sets the musty machine in motion, plunging the viewer...Watch Movie
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The Clowns
Federico Fellini's fascination with the circus and the surreal come to a head in one of his final masterpieces, THE CLOWNS. The film reflects Fellini's childhood obsession with clowns and begins with a young boy watching a circus set up from his bedroom window. Though comical and referred to as a...Watch Movie
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The War Game
Two grade-school-aged boys play with cap guns in an apartment complex. As their fun gets increasingly rough, one of the "toys" turns out to look suspiciously like a real revolver and the "game" grows increasingly dangerous. This visually accomplished meditation on violence, sans any spoken...Watch Movie
