Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.
Stuck in a repetitive cycle, a woman struggles with the meaninglessness and absurdity of her existence, but finds momentary solace in her cups of tea.
History as immersion and dispersion in the fragments of the past, a visionary journey accompanied by the voice of Patty Pravo. Presented at the Taormina Festival '97.
A surrealistic anthology of horror films; four segments structured as an intense fever dream...
Set in the desert-weird wilds of Joshua Tree, California, Serpentine Pink is a distinctively visceral and surreal independent, female-centric film that digs into the various and rigorous ways a heart heals from trauma. Inspired by France's Grand Guignol style of horror theatre, and utilizing a lyrical language both visual and verbal to capture the strange poetry of the Mojave land and soundscape, Serpentine Pink follows a reclusive biker woman and her John Wayne-obsessed exotic dancer lover's disturbing fallout after a violent acid attack. An ethereal psychic and her aspiring healer companion converge with supernatural forces in an attempt to confront and then heal the women's - as well as their own - deep-rooted, personal pain that comes from trying to break the cycle of possessive love.
An animated short film about a person who's got their head stuck in a chamber pot and tries to get it off.
In the heart of the English Moorland, THE GENTLEMAN pursues answers from an enigmatic PRIEST.
A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of cognizance and finds that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.
Adachi's follow-up to Bowl using the figure of a woman suffering from an unusual sexual aliment has often been taken as a controversial allegory for the political stalemate of the Leftist student movement after their impressive wave of massive fiery protests failed to defeat the neo-imperialist Japan-US Security Treaty. The ritualistic solemnity of the charged sexual scenes contribute to the oneiric qualities of Closed Vagina which Adachi would later insist was an open work, not meant to deliver any kind of deliberate political message. - Harvard Film Archive
A young chef cooks up a mysterious dish.
Scandinavia, 1,000 AD. For years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self.
Events take a sinister turn one night in London, when two very different couples arrive at a double-booked apartment. Actions have consequences and not all debts are paid for with money. Leaving, it's harder than you think.
Elise is running from a strange, obscured figure. The danger is at her home, her street - inside of her. She runs and runs, but doesn't seem to get away from it. Meanwhile, a mirrored figure is playing a chess game with her life.
A journey to an unknown star, a children's theatre play, an untalented writer and the fear of becoming the worst version of oneself. A mixture of live-action footage and animated scenes. A stream of (un)conscious stereotypes.
El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.
CREMASTER 2 is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. In Matthew Barney's abstraction of this process, the system resists partition and tries to remain in the state of equilibrium imagined in Cremaster 1.
CREMASTER 3 is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect...
The stage emulates life and compresses it, setting free skills learned over lifetimes in brief but dazzling displays for the amusement and judgment of others. For the performers, it is the ultimate risk, and some will rise while others must fall. Nowhere is this truer than at the Seisho Music Academy, where music, dance and real weapons all come into play in the creation of the next great Star. Karen and Hikari’s destinies have been linked since a childhood promise, but their journeys here have taken very different paths. Now, after Hikari leaves, Karen must discover who she is without her opposite, while Hikari must rediscover her own course. Nor are they the only girls who must reassess and change if they want to achieve their dreams, as the dance, magic, and swordplay continue!
In the aftermath of an emotional shock, a ruthless high-class manager faces her own abyss, becomes pervaded by a sensory spirit and undertakes a purifying voyage.
Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.