A girl conducts a necromantic ritual in 1901 to re-animate the bodies of Diego Portales and Jaime Guzmán, the architects of Chilean authoritarianism.
Tag Archives: Black and White
THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FAUST (1926) / FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED (2000)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
We all think we know Faust. The guy who sold his soul to the devil, right? But before there was Christopher Marlowe’s dramatization of the tale of Faust, or Goethe’s two-volume epic Faust, or Rembrandt’s etching of Faust, or Liszt or Berlioz or even Randy Newman’s Faust, there was the actual guy. The historical record finds a Johan Georg Faust born in the last 13th century who went on to become a respected alchemist and astrologer, but who may also have been an outrageous con artist, claiming the ability to reproduce the miracles of Jesus Christ. Rumors suggest that he died in an explosion, a fate which his contemporaries attested to his ties with the devil. Before the century was out, tales of his extraordinary misdeeds had begun to proliferate; one such copy fell into the hands of Marlowe, and the legend of the man who made an unwise bargain with the devil began to spread.
The price of immortality is steep. “Faustian bargain” has become common parlance, and on this very site, two different interpretations of the Faust myth are currently under consideration for eventual induction into the Apocrypha, including a Jan Svankmajer-directed surreal mix and a version of more recent vintage from Russia. Today, let’s dive into a couple more such interpretations, one attempting to faithfully deliver the classic tale with what were then newfangled tools of cinema, while the other takes what it wants from the myth to reach its own, not-especially-lofty ends.
FAUST (1926)
DIRECTED BY: F. W. Murnau
FEATURING: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, William Dieterle
PLOT: Heaven and hell make a wager over the fate of Faust, a pious man who sells his soul to the devil to save his city from the plague.
COMMENTS: The short directorial career of F. W. Murnau is so loaded with classics — Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Sunrise, Tabu — that a remarkable achievement like Faust could easily get lost in the shuffle. The film more than earns its place in this august company, though, with style to burn. Though the tale is familiar and the visual gimmicks are naturally dated, there’s a freshness to this telling that sidesteps a lot of the expected reservations.
Murnau is particularly proud of his in-camera effects, and he deploys these techniques with Zemeckisian fervor. An early scene in which the devil looms over a small medieval town like the most imposing mountain would have justified recalling the film a hundred years hence, but Continue reading THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FAUST (1926) / FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED (2000)
SATURDAY SHORT: GUGUSSE ET L’AUTOMATE (1897)
Recently, the Library of Congress found and restored a copy of this early Georges Melies short, long believed lost, in which Gugusse beats an automaton clown to death with a hammer.
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: VASE DE NOCES (1974)
AKA Wedding Trough; The Pig F*cking Movie
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY:Thierry Zéno
FEATURING: Dominique Garny
PLOT: A young farmer embraces his animalistic side as he romances a sow.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Vase de Noces is an under-appreciated classic of surrealist cinema. Not only it is full of extremities but it remains enigmatic, inviting us to ponder on possible interpretations.
COMMENTS: The opening shot, somewhere in between the lyrical and the grotesque, the poetic and the nonsensical, sets the tone accordingly. Our protagonist attempts to dress two pigeons with doll heads, in the first of a series of segments where animals fall prey to his whims. The monstrosity he strives to create recalls a pair of malformed angels, and his perverted, personal view of the angelic. And this layered and disturbing—if purely symbolic—act is just the beginning of our tale.
The film is simple from a narrative standpoint. We follow our protagonist, a young peasant, in a series of extreme and illogical acts. He seems at times a pure, innocent, childlike soul, flying his kite without a care in the world and praying before lunch like a proper Christian. He is also capable of the grossest barbarities, like the infamous act of bestiality mentioned whenever this movie is discussed.
What exactly his nature? Is he a real yet disturbed person, a simpleton, and the film a realistic character study? Or is he purely symbolic, an allegorical personification of the wildest impulses of the human psyche: the id, the beast lurking inside each and every one of us? Probably the latter. Our protagonist is a being of pure emotion, full of contradicting desires, yet always eager to embrace his bestial side.
He seems to find some sort of happiness through bestiality—at first. The female pig gets pregnant and gives birth to three beautiful piglets. It’s almost wholesome. Yet the young man is still unable to find comfort. Unable to help himself, he wreaks havoc through a series of repugnant acts, culminating in a tragic finale. Fully embracing your wild impulses can only bring destruction and self-annihilation, our tale seems to say.
Vase De Noces was Zéno’s feature debut, his second movie after a short documentary portraying schizophrenic artist Georges Moinet. His main interests here are not dissimilar. Zéno once again studies humanity apart from its logical “civilized” aspects, depicting people as amalgamations of impulses, emotions, depravity, and nothing more.
That’s why words—a product of reason—are completely absent from our tale. Instead, we have a rich soundscape full of playful tunes imitating animals’ voices or natural sounds, with classical melodies adding a hint of lyricism. There are also piercing and alarming noises at the most intense moments. The soundscape perfectly aligns with the film’s hypnotic black and white photography.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: TONY ODYSSEY (2025)
Antônio Odisseia
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Thales Banzai
FEATURING: Kelson Succi, Iraci Estrela
PLOT: After robbing his father’s restaurant, Tony runs off with his girl Ivy and they share a “paste”-fueled transdimensional journey.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Tony Odyssey is down-to-Earth dramedy meets high theological physics, with motorcade bunnies, a lusty ur-Mother, and a game show God amongst its otherworldly revelations.
COMMENTS: Tony hates reality. We first find him cleaning an uncooperative toilet in his family’s restaurant, slipping on a damp patch and landing his hands in something best left unmentioned. It’s worth mentioning that this restaurant seems to be nothing but a front for a drug (and firearms?) operation, run by Tony’s cold-hearted father and his one-legged brother. Being down a leg doesn’t stop the would-be Lothario from hitting on Tony’s girl, Ivy, who’s popped by for a visit, snatching a firearm from a motorbike parked out front on her way in. Things then happen quickly: guns drawn, hostage taken, drugs stolen, and Tony and Ivy escape to a not-far-enough-away warehouse to take some of dad’s mind-bending chemicals.
Banzai’s dream blast has energy to spare, and does its best to keep the viewer unmoored. The opening credits spool over a craggy quarry, with a horse-drawn cart slowly making its way up the spiraling ruins of the access road. Sergione-y guitar licks thrum out a jagged, ambiguously Western tune, while the fonts for the credits evoke early ’80s computer text. Space and time are not our enemies—but they are not our friends, either. It is key that Tony manipulate these elements, and with his witchy friend Ivy, he unlocks a door. But where does it lead?
The short answer is: nowhere, and everywhere. The mind-altered pair drop a dark, gluey goo in their eyes, and find themselves in a taxi driven by a man who cannot remember his own name. Tony parts with a necklace of untold wealth to fly a boy’s kite, soaring at first into the air before jerkily crashing down. Desserts overflow at a chic boozery where a self-avowed Contrarian holds court, monologuing at length about how art means nothing any more, and that art patrons may as well just nail their money on the walls. Ivy’s and Tony’s fates diverge for a stretch, during which time Tony apparently dies, and after a brief wait in Hades’ check-in, has an awkward encounter with a bazonga’d matriarch. Watching violent milk porn, he is eventually pulled into the presence of God themselves.
This dream quest is a delightful affair, shot in a crisp black and white that renders the experience old-fashioned while oozing a vibrant surrealistic pop. Kelson Succi is perfect as the plebian dreamer, and Iraci Estrela is the perfect foil as the down-to-earth occultist. The soundtrack pulsates jauntily, often performed by cool-cat jazz men on invisible instruments. It inspires thought, too, about many of the unknown and unknowable angles concerning fate, life, facsimile, and destiny. Are we all God’s avatars? What grand drama—or nonsense—is the end game? And how can we hope to control our reality when we exist in it at such a finite and arbitrary intersection? Who knows. Just dance like a bunny as you bend your mind to the rhythm of flickering lights.
Tony Odyssey has a worldwide distribution deal (excluding UK and Ireland) from Kaleidoscope Film Distribution, and should show up for viewing somewhere in the future.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: