STRANGE DARK DREAMS
April 16th 2008 05:23
There were only two directors groping and pulling me down into that whirlpool and into the abyss; Jodorowsky and Lynch.
I’ve seen all of David Lynch’s features. He’s consistently the most intriguing fabricator of cinematic spectres in North American cinema. Martin Scorsese may be the verbose visceralist, Jim Jarmusch the minimal artiste, the Coen brothers the wry humourists, but David Lynch is the dark dreamer, the nightmare conjuror par excellence.
And from just below the border, is the filmmaker who has dabbled so gloriously with the surreal; loco Mexican Jodorowsky. I’ve seen three of the four features he’s delivered and they are about as enigmatic and grotesque and brilliant as cinema can get.
So here are seven movies that are guaranteed to fuck your mind right up, and one sentence each to describe their ingenious madness.
ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY
The gunfighter El Topo (The Mole) and his young son ride through a desert on a mission to find and defeat four master gunmen, while two mysterious women attempt to thwart his quest, and religion and violence collide.
2. The Holy Mountain (1973)
A Christ-like figure wanders through grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery, where he meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system.
A young man, confined in a mental hospital, experiences flashbacks showing him being traumatised in the family circus by his philandering knife-wielding father, and his religious fanatic of a mother.
DAVID LYNCH
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his frustrated girlfriend, her loony parents, his seductive neighbour, and the unbearable screams of his newly-born mutant child.
A free-jazz saxophonist is framed for the murder of his wife and sent to prison, where he inexplicably morphs into a young mechanic and begins leading a new, but very precarious existence.
After a car-wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and an earnest Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a series of mis-adventures which twist darker and darker.
4. Inland Empire (2006)
An actor’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted and fearsome as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.
Of course there are other movies which defy logical description, coherent synopsis, or any kind of rational explanation. But anyone who truly loves the dark dream-fabric potency of cinema keeps coming back to these mutant babies.
Thanks to Internet Movie Database for the plot outline blurbs some of which I re-shaped.
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Comment by Cheryl J
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Comment by Damo
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Comment by JohnDoe
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
JD, well, if you're gonna add Jacob's Ladder, then why not Donnie Darko ...
Cronenberg and Herzog generally follow more conventional narratives, albeit the subject matter is fucked up ... whereas the movie's I've selected actually break conventional narrative rules ...
Comment by KylieW
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I was actually think of Cronenberg's Naked Lunch and Herzog's more experimental works...but hey it's all quality dreams/nightmares to me.
Donnie could have gone in the stew, but i felt we already had enough meat and veges to make an appetizing meal
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
However, having seen Repulsion, at the age of 12, that was one hell of an experience!
Oh, and I agree, Naked Lunch..
cheers
fog
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by D. Armenta
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Debate Fan
Not because there are severed ears in common, but I found that odd scene in Reservoir Dogs ( with the cheery Stealer's Wheel tune "Stuck in the Middle with You" adding an extra bizarre feel) in this category--at least that scene.
I also seem to recall a weird little movie in the 80s--was it "Toxic Avenger'? Been too long........
Anything based on Kafka's work is bound to be a mindfuck, haha!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Have you heard of Steven Soderbergh's Kafka? It was the feature he made directly after sex, lies and videotape, starring Jeremy Irons, but it wasn't distributed properly and sunk without a trace.