A young man returns home for an awkward fettuccine dinner with his parents, while carting goop in his suitcase.
Tag Archives: Surrealism
CAPSULE: LYNCH/OZ (2022)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Lynch/Oz can be rented or purchased on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Alexandre O. Philippe
FEATURING: Amy Nichols, Rodney Ascher, John Waters, Karyn Kusama, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, David Lowery
PLOT: Six directors and one critic give their thoughts on the connections between The Wizard of Oz and the complete works of David Lynch.
COMMENTS: Director Alexandre O. Philippe has made a career out of making films about other filmmakers’ films: George Lucas, Alfred Hitchcock, and William Friedkin 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 ‘Twin Peaks,’ 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:
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ONCE WITHIN A TIME (2023)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Godfrey Reggio, 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.
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 Kenneth Anger: 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:
![Once Within A Time [Bly-ray] [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YIXa95bzL._SL500_.jpg)
- Independent Film
- Comedy
- Fantasy
SATURDAY SHORT: RECYCLED – REO (2006)
A passenger finds herself lost while being ferried by a limousine driver with amnesia. One of three “recycleD” short films by Sparrow.
CAPSULE: DALÌLAND (2022)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Mary Harron
FEATURING: Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves, Ezra Miller
PLOT: A young art gallery intern has a brush with the strange world of Salvador Dalì during the master’s twilight years.
COMMENTS: Tucked into this quiet biopic is as apt a description of what attracts us, here at 366 Weird Movies, to the films we hunt for, enjoy, and cling to. On a cash errand for the maestro, James interrupts a gallery owner pitching a signed art print. The woman is intrigued, but hesitant, not sure what to make of the image which stands before her. “You… like it?” she asks. “I find it upsetting… I don’t think I want to live with someone else’s weird dream on my wall.” James replies, “But that weirdness, that’s what makes it original. It got to you, that’s why you’ll never get tired of it; you’ll never forget it.” He nails it, inadvertently securing the sale. Simultaneously, his description of that piece explains, as best one can, what Salvador Dalì, and all weird visionaries, are about.
Mary Harron’s film is more of an ensemble piece than the name (and grandiose subject matter) might suggest. In fact, much of the film involves Salvador Dalì (Ben Kingsley), now old, at times bordering on caricature, observing those around him: the trendy hangers-on, his friend Alice Cooper, his inspiring—but harsh—wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa), his new assistant James, and, most of all, Dalì. He speaks in third person. He performs without surcease in the presence of others. And he ages, as it is “very tiring being Dalì.” Put aside his trove of drawings, paintings, and sculptures; his life was a work of art, a performance piece for the ages.
Dalìland is polished and straightforward, but that does not make it resonate any less. While there are many searing, satirical jabs at posers and poseurs, show-offs and charlatans, Harron neither glorifies nor denigrates these oddballs and outcasts dancing along society’s periphery; those who, through their mien and flair mitigate the day-to-day blandness of those around them; the eye-catchers who make others wonder, “Just what the heck are they doing?” and who devote their life force to lending us a touch of the unreal—the sur-real, if you will. Dalì was many different people over the course of his long life, and the performer behind these acts is impossible to know. Indeed, it is clear even to a layman such as myself, that the “real” Dalì probably never existed, and Dalì could not have been happier for having achieved that.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: