Surrealism Cinema

Surrealism is a cultural movement from the 1920's that has touched various fields such as literature and music, philosophically being about anything but reality. Considered as being abstract and non sequitur, as well as regularily using symbolism, it is an interesting topic for me.

With that said, let me talk about some of my favorite surreal movies briefly, using strange scenes as examples, but admittedly, I have summarized some of them in this post already, without regrets.

The Man in the Planet, as depicted here from Eraserhead(1977), is thought to represent many things by us. Some say that he symbolizes God or Satan, others see him as the personification of Henry's fear, or perhaps he is just some kind of a machinist pulling the levers who happens to be inside a planet. Is there an explanation for this or any other scene in the movie? Only David Lynch knows the truth, because many scenes can be interpreted in different ways.

This odd dream picture isn't necessarily surreal visually, but Monanieba(1984) has several scenes that seemed out of this Georgian movie's world, such as knights being present in certain scenes. Otherwise than having an interesting story about a family's political influence with strong dialogue and philosophy, Varlam Aravidz's mere presence alone seemed more grand than the boundaries of Monanieba. I especially loved his speech towards the majority, because it's highly convincing to follow this trembling man. In any case, it was a strange yet good anti Soviet movie for sure.

Conspirators of Pleasure(1996) is a strange Czech film about unusual humans featuring their own songs plus there is absolutely no spoken dialogue present. Each of them have their own personal pleasure habit that is so bizarre at times because of the given imagery that it becomes fascinating as well as disturbing for some of us. As if having no conversations or the odd behavior of the characters wasn't enough already, once you arrive at the second half of this surrealistic and perverted journey, you are officially in the weird zone of cinema once again. 

Just to point out some noteworthy scenes, a man and a woman create effigies of each other and they proceed towards torturing and punishing them in their own ways, a police agent accompanied by opera music is obsessed with objects touching his body, a postwoman created bread balls and pops a ton of them inside her ears plus nose and a newsagent constructs a machine that lets him masturbate whenever his favorite newsreader comes on the television. But perhaps the best scenes of these characters is their look of complete bliss and satisfaction upon achieving their pleasures.

As with the previous film, and also being directed both by Jan Svankmajer, this Czech re-visioning of Alice in Wonderland also uses beautiful stop motion techniques in order to present us the plot. Illogical objects and strange themes play through this world famous literature. It borrows heavily, but adds its own way of cinematography, depicting a surrealistic take which builds up slowly, yet strangely.

Neco z Alenky(1988) is a unique take mostly because of the effects being put to use, considered as creepy by some. The White Rabbit plays a larger role in this escapism, rather small area of rooms. Not many other prominent characters appear until near the end, but nonetheless do give this a try if you are curious. The architecture was indeed comforting and frightening according to others, hence being bizarre surreal cinema and all. I have also probably never seen so much stop motion scenes at once in a feature film.

One of my most favorite movies out there is The Holy Mountain(1973), a Chilean film by Alejandro Jodorowsky which has a ton of absolutely crazy scenes, and it is by the way also most definitely not a movie for everyone. A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal.

This summary was stated according to IMDb, and it's all true, but these freaky scenes alone are worth seeing for those who are open minded, who wish to be enlightened and who want to have seen one of the most "out of this world" movies ever in my opinion. Best of all perhaps for me is the ending, which will explain the entire movie fundamentally.

Stalker(1979) is one of the slowest moving films alongside the other Russian movies of Andrey Tarkovskiy about the mysterious Zone, a room which is able to grant wishes. It's a deep philosophical movie with 3 entirely different characters coming together to approach the Zone. There isn't much else to say, other than some of the movie's iconic scenes, including the transition from black and white to colorful graphics, the long take river and rainfall scenes and the telekinesis scene at the ending. Stalker is most of all a movie to experience in patience, wisdom and concentration.

Last but not least is one of the most beautiful surreal movies I have ever seen, which is Sayat Nova(1968), an Armenian movie. Also known as The Color of the Promegranate, it features juxtaposition scenes sticking out, immersive images, a curious pace and unbeatable symbolism for me. You might have seen pieces of it during Juno Reacter's God is God video montage, but otherwise, consider this one of the lost diamonds from the 20th century of cinema.

It's a visual masterpiece for me personally because of the surreal and religious objects being portrayed so exquisite, not to mention the sounds. The movie was done before I knew it, I cannot praise the immersion enough. About the storyline? Really, it doesn't matter, it's all about the experience. This was such a mysterious and beautiful movie for me, that it has become an inspiration source for me.