An art student animates the post-apocalyptic surrealist paintings of Zdzislaw Beksinski.
Tag Archives: Surrealism
CAPSULE: BY DESIGN (2025)
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By Design is available to rent or purchase on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Amanda Kramer
FEATURING: Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Samantha Matis
PLOT: A woman swaps bodies with… a chair.
COMMENTS: Body-swapping has a long tradition in cinema. From mainstream comedies (Penny Marshal’s Big) to horror/sci-fi flicks (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), it has established itself as a subgenre in our collective consciousness. More personal approaches can be found, too, using the premise to build an eccentric mood piece or a multilayered allegory with underlying social commentary (e.g. Under the Skin). The last category is where By Design belongs.
The plot follows Camille, a single woman with a life that seems unfulfilling to her, even if she tries to hide it. She is lonely; she has female friends, but jealousy often emerges between them. Her philosophical musings, expressed in a distinctly hypnotic voice, give a sense of her unique worldview and portray a character longing for something beyond her mundane life, something that will gain her attention and maybe even love.
She finds what she’s looking for in the most unexpected place, a shop selling designer chairs. From that moment on, everything plays out like a magical realist parable. She falls in love with a specific chair she cannot have, and through the power of her desire—there isn’t explicit lore here explaining the process—she swaps bodies with it so that they never have to part. And thus her odyssey begins.
After this transformation, the narrative splits, sometimes following chair-Camille and her encounters with a charming man named Olivier, at other times focusing on her now-vacant human body. The latter scenes recall the Theater of the Absurd, since most people don’t seem to realize something is off—not even her own mother. This suggests an underlying commentary on the way people prefer her as an object and an empty vessel rather than a person.
Kramer further develops her commentary on the objectification of bodies—both female and male—through Camille’s adventures as a chair. She is literally an object now, at the disposal of her new owner Olivier, a man who has himself been a victim of objectification and can understand her. Their weirdly erotic relationship suggests a deep understanding between them. All is not as it seems, however.
Kramer tells her story with theatricality from start till finish, culminating in short pieces of choreography. Most scenes take place in interior spaces. The furniture is of minimalist and modernist design. The acting could be described as melodramatic or over-expressive. This is clearly an expressionist artistic movie, not interested in submitting to naturalism. There are even POV shots from the perspective of a chair.
By Design will appeal to a variety of audiences: those seeking art-house curiosities with unique concepts will find it enjoyable, and its themes and the way it portrays human bodies —objectified, sensual, yet soulful—will intrigue those interested in the female gaze in cinema and feminist narratives.
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: OM DAR-B-DAR (1988)
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DIRECTED BY: Kamal Swaroop
FEATURING: Anita Kanwar, Gopi Desai, Lalit Tiwari
PLOT: A young boy named Om comes of age amidst diamond breeding frogs, melodramatic love affairs, and other absurdities.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Almost completely incomprehensible at first, like a Hindi “Finnegan’s Wake,” Om Dar-B-Dar requires at least a second viewing to fully appreciate its eccentricities and chaotic nature.
COMMENTS: At first, the narrative seems straightforward, but don’t be fooled, this is as surreal as a movie can get. We follow a family, father Babuji and his two children, a thirty-year-old woman named Gayatri and a young boy with the unique name Om. After a short voiceover introduction giving us a bit of a socio-political background, Om seems to emerge as the tale’s main character. However, something is off.
Dialogues between Om and his family start casually but stray immediately into the absurd. A love affair begins between his sister and a young man, full of extravagant musical numbers in the familiar Bollywood style, albeit with nonsensical lyrics. Early on, the movie shows a willingness to break with stylistic conventions and to parody and deconstruct long-established genres through absurdism. Gayatri’s love affair subverts the language of erotic melodramas, for instance, while the main narrative of Om’s life plays like an epic saga on steroids.
And then it really gets weird! Characters rant about space travels or express a longing for female emancipation, while embarking on a variety of bizarre schemes involving diamond breeding frogs, or imitating God for profit. Humorous sketches pseudo-poetic and pseudo-philosophical ramblings abound, all while delivering caustic commentaries on the commercialization of spirituality.
Om’s life flash-forwards before our eyes through rapid editing full of jump cuts. Occasional gaps in time or space create a sense of disorientation and the fragmented narrative contributes a dreamy quality. Hypnotic sound effects like voice echoes, or psychedelic futuristic tunes, are applied. There’s even a complete, albeit momentary, disruption of the audio at one point.
Om Dar- B -Dar is an enigmatic puzzle thanks to the unconventional way it combines the everyday with surrealism. It will appeal mostly to those that have some familiarity with Hindu tradition and history, though, as many mythological and cultural references can be found among the absurdity. The rest of us will scratch our heads and open an online encyclopedia.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by debasish dey, who suggested it with the following background: “…a 1988 Indian Postmodernist film directed by Kamal Swaroop. The film, about the adventures of a school boy named Om along with his family, employs nonlinear narrative and an absurdist storyline to satir[ize] mythology, arts, politics and even philosophy. The movie was described by its director as a story of Lord Brahma, and it sprouted from the idea that in Hinduism, although Lord Brahma was considered the father of the entire universe, strangely no one ever worshiped him. The director also said that the film’s script was written based solely on dreams and images that he had and claimed he ‘cannot think in words.’ ” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: VASE DE NOCES (1974)
AKA Wedding Trough; The Pig F*cking Movie
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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:
SATURDAY SHORT: FARMERS?! (2024)
Irish farmers mourn the loss of one of their own, with screaming and songs.