Tag Archives: Surrealism

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: LA CICATRICE INTÉRIEURE [THE INNER SCAR] (1972)

DIRECTED BY: Philippe Garrel

FEATURING: Nico, Pierre Clémenti, Philippe Garrel, Christian Aaron Boulogne

PLOT: A man leads a woman through the desert;  abandons her as she pleads for help;  a nude archer arrives; the woman travels with him as well, until she again cries out in despair.

Still from La Cicatrice Interieur [The Inner Scar] (1972)

COMMENTS: The woman sits alone in a desolate landscape. A man approaches, wearing a burnt umber suit that is somehow both 70s and Victorian. He pulls the woman to her feet. They walk, heading toward the horizon as we fade to black. Before we’ve had a chance to fade in on the new scene, we can hear her, sobbing and wailing that she can’t breathe. She keens like a toddler who has been denied dessert, and the silent man finally abandons her, trudging off… in what turns out to be a circle, ending up right back with his bereft traveling companion. She shrieks “I don’t need you!” and staggers off into the distance. 

So passes the first ten minutes of La cicatrice intérieure. There isn’t going to be all that much variation on the theme. A first-time viewer should gird their loins for a lot of walking, a lot of screaming, occasional appearances by fire, and several dramatic songs that might be at home in a Ren Faire, courtesy of Nico. It’s the kind of film that will devote five minutes to despairing cries of“There is no justice!” followed immediately by an extended tracking shot of sheep being herded down a dirt road.

The temptation is to view La cicatrice intérieure as some kind of allegory. No one has a name, no one engages in dialogue, none of this should be taken literally. The locations in Egypt, Iceland, and New Mexico are stunning, but the people are barely even characters, and there are almost no situations to speak of. (The film even starts to parody itself, as more than one lengthy pan across a dramatic vista suddenly reveals Nico, once more shattering the peace with her vocal despair like an inescapable buzzkill.) But it doesn’t really say much in an abstract sense, either. The fire, the sword, the giddy nude toddler lying on a fur amidst a field of ice… they’re metaphorical, but without actually representing anything. 

So what is the goal? The film seems to function in part as a kind of proto-music video for Nico, the German chanteuse best known for her collaboration with the Velvet Underground. This makes it all the more curious that she doesn’t get top billing. Here she is, the actor with the most screen time, the only one to make the journey from the beginning of the film to the end, the ostensible reason the film exists at all, and she’s listed second. Although in fairness, perhaps the top spot is meant as a reward for Clémenti, who shows up as the new male lead roughly halfway through the film and who spends the duration completely naked save for a quiver and bow (which go unused). Clémenti is mostly impassive, although he impressively does things unclothed like ride a horse or sail a boat off an icy coast, inspiring the thought, “That looks really uncomfortable.”

The few moments of speech may be a clue as to the directorial intent. Nico alternates between German and English, while Clémenti and an adolescent boy speak French. Garrel reportedly refused to permit subtitles, meaning the literal incomprehensibility of some of the dialogue is a feature, not a bug. Being opaque is the point. That seems to be an overriding philosophy in La cicatrice intérieure; if you’re going to complain about things not making sense, you’re not the right audience. In that case, you might want to take a walk.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… pretentious artsy indulgence at its worst.” – Zev Toledano, The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre

(This movie was nominated for review by NGboo, who dubbed it one of “the most surreal and weirdest movies I’ve seen this year” back in 2011. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

CAPSULE: LYNCH/OZ (2022)

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Lynch/Oz can be rented or purchased on-demand.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Alexandre O. Philippe

FEATURING: Amy Nichols, , , , , ,

PLOT: Six directors and one critic give their thoughts on the connections between The Wizard of Oz and the complete works of .

Still from Lynch/Oz (2022)

COMMENTS: Director Alexandre O. Philippe has made a career out of making films about other filmmakers’ films: George Lucas, , and are among his previous subjects. This modestly structured doc—nothing but experts reading their own personal essays over film clips—tackles his weightiest subject yet. The Wizard of Oz is a massive icon in pop culture, and, within his sphere of influence, David Lynch is equally influential. The result is not as narrow and academic as you might fear; although the movie expects the viewer to have a working knowledge of Lynch and Oz, the topic is broad enough to serve as a jumping-off point for reflections about movies, American culture, and the artistic process itself.

The essays are roughly arranged in order from most to least enlightening. Nicholson’s opening chapter (“The Wind”) is, in my view, the best; I think her position as the only critic on the panel gives her the widest lens through which to view the subject. Rodney Ascher focuses on Oz as a perfect story template (it’s basically the Hero’s Journey with doppelgangers). John Waters is a mid-show change-of-pace: he doesn’t analyze Lynch’s films intensively, but plays to his talents as a raconteur, telling stories about meeting Lynch (and nuggets like the time he dressed as the Wicked Witch for a children’s Halloween party). Karyn Kusama gives us the most direct evidence of the connection: Lynch’s unelaborated response at a Mulholland Drive Q&A, “there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about The Wizard of Oz.” Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead dig into Lynch’s obsession with Judy Garland. David Lowery’s segment is probably the least on-topic—and the most concerned with his own personal output—but nevertheless contains fascinating theories about the purpose of childrens’ films (setting kids up to deal with the disillusionment of adulthood and the real world). Phillipe’s contribution is mainly in selecting the clips and images that illustrate and expand on the authors’ words, an exhaustive task that’s not as simple as just fast-forwarding to the appropriate spot in Oz or Wild at Heart; there are also archival Lynch appearances to sort through, and excursions into everything from Gone with the Wind to Star Wars to Videodrome.

“The fact that The Wizard of Oz and David Lynch can go hand-in-hand and communicate with one another,” Lowery explains, “the fact that we can have this conversation about ruby slippers and ,’ is one of the most beautiful things about this medium.” Indeed, Lynch/Oz is about the influence of one on the other, but it’s also about all sorts of creative cross-pollinations and new perspectives. Cinema, and the arts in general, are all about conversations between human beings over time. Lynch/Oz is obviously aimed at a select few cinephiles, but if your breadth of knowledge is wide enough, you’ll find plenty to get you thinking—and if not, you’ll discover plenty of new corridors to explore in the labyrinths of cinema.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“An enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying, look at a strange cinematic affinity…. Though frustratingly unfocused and sometimes overreaching (even compared to Philippe’s other docs, which are never what you’d call precision-crafted), the film is consistently enjoyable, with just enough flashes of insight to justify its existence.”–John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter (festival screening)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ONCE WITHIN A TIME (2023)

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RecommendedWeirdest!

DIRECTED BY: , Jon Kane

FEATURING: Sussan Deyhim, Tara Khozein, John Flax, Apollo Garcia Orellana, Brian Bellot, mystery celebrity guest

PLOT: Curtains open on a glowing, chanting golden tree woman, then children watch a couple with wicker cages around their heads wander through incidents of apocalypse, technology, and wonder.

Still from Once Within a Time (2023)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Simultaneously ancient and hyper-modern, Once Within a Time is as an apocalyptic dispatch from the far reaches of reality. A bold and foolish (in the complimentary sense) work of cinematic art, dense with imagery and symbolism, this is octogenarian Godfrey Reggio‘s first narritivesque film—his vision of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century, teetering on the brink of cataclysm, but balanced by wonder and creative possibility.

COMMENTS: Godfrey Reggio announces Once Within a Time as a “bardic fairy tale”; an imposing description, but one that the film lives up to. Set to a new score by Philip Glass—with snatches of other music floating through the mix—it’s a carnival of free-flowing imagery and ideas, a techno-gnostic hymn about cataclysms and the birth of new worlds. After the red curtains pull back, we are launched into scenes of an Earth goddess singing from her glowing heart, and innocent children spinning on a merry-go-round. Then, Adam and Eve appear, only to have their equanimity quickly destroyed by a digitized Apple. Cell phones recur as dire artifacts: as cages, as monoliths, as bricks on a road that leads to an audience of faceless puppets. We watch a dance of harlequin emojis. Entertainers and demagogues speak gibberish. UFOs zoom into dreamspaces and blast giant robots with their ray guns. Monkeys experiment with virtual reality goggles. There’s a reference to 2001 that will probably draw laughs, and maybe cheers, from savvy live audiences. There is even a special celebrity guest whose appearance I don’t want to spoil, who speaks in John Coltrane solos and acts as a pied piper. And throughout it all, reaction shots of children, bemused, delighted, taking in the helter-skelter as best they can, their little minds gathering fuel… hope for the future.

The visual aesthetic is faded yet bright, digital but evocative of finely aged film stock. The style and imagery brings to mind experimental films of the 1950s-1970s, specifically : the wicker baskets around the lead adult’s heads like the birdcages of the Pleasure Dome, the UFOs possibly on loan from Lucifer Rising, the whole thing seasoned with occult premonitions of a New Age Dawning. There are fleeting scenes of destruction, decay, despotism, mushroom clouds: but the imagery returns, unfailingly, to dwell on innocent children at play, and themes of creation and re-creation. It ends on a Botticelli tableau, with children as angels and Venus yet to emerge from her throbbing egg sac.

A new Philip Glass score is, of course, something to celebrate. The soundtrack here is more of a suite of short pieces than a large scale composition, moving through numerous flavors to illustrate the Reggio’s many different settings. Glass’ hypnotic minimalism may not get the chance to do its accumulation-by-repetition thing here, but he makes up for with a wider palette of colors: unfamiliar elements like chanting, accordions, and even African percussion offer the composer new settings for his ideas. The contributions of Iranian singer Susan Deyhim (who also plays the tree) are most welcome.

The runtime is listed as 51 minutes, but the credits take up the final 8, so the film itself is a manageable 45-minute experience. Watching this on a big screen with an appreciative audience would be magnificent; it makes perfect sense that it debuted at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art. It is uncommercial, personal, specialized, and fated to be underseen, but Once Within a Time is a major cinema event in 2023. Make it a point to track it down when you can.

Once Within a Time official site for trailer and screening calendar.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…this strange new experiment — less scripted than staged — revisits early cinema with the same doom-laden playfulness that [Reggio’s] previous work used to push the medium forward. “–David Ehrlich, IndieWire (contemporaneous)