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Brewster is an owlish, intellectual boy who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome. He has a dream: to take flight within the confines of the stadium. Brewster tells those he trusts of his dream, but displays a unique way of treating others who do not fit within his plans. When the fateful day arrives, and he enters the dome with his fanciful construction of bird wings, Brewster is surrounded by the police. Will he be caught before he attempts to fly? Source

Altman‘s Brewster McCloud is a magical film that sees life as a somewhat absurd journey of unfulfilled dreams, but not as a process of frustration – more of a monomaniacal vision of freedom.  Brewster dreams of literal flight. He also has a guardian that also seems like a mother figure, a bird mother and spiritual guide.  There is Python-esque narration that flows throughout making parallels between the world of ornithology and anthropology. Interesting characters (Stacy Keach is great) make the story flow briskly. Popular culture references, political commentary, quirky characters, a car chase – this is something not to be missed if you’re lucky enough to view it. An absurd, quirky gem – not surprising consider the title character is played by Bud Cort.

The Czech New Wave is one of the most exciting periods for film people and Who Killed Jessie? is one of a handful of classics.  This film features the most successful attempt at fusing comics books and film.  Archetypal characters like “Superman” and “Cowboy” and the titular Jessie, a female superhero/sexpot, take us on a madcap adventure when they are materialized into the real world via a scientific experiment – from a scientist’s dreams.  There are subtexts related to authoritarianism and freedom but ultimately it really works on the level of a briskly paced magical adventure.  See this if you can!

Solyaris is Andrei Tarkovksky‘s masterpiece but only one among many. It’s a subconscious journey through dark, blocked content in one man’s life. It’s also a film, like Woman in the Dunes, that deals with Existential angst and the real possibility that life could be a solipsism.

Surely other people exist, but the paradox is that we actually create their existence, to ourselves, in our own minds. Truth is very subjective and a lot of the time we interact with our version of others rather than them as they really are. In Solyaris, our projections or our inner experience of others physically come to life and unresolved, unconscious life experiences that we refused to face, now seek resolution. Solyaris is science fiction with a psychological bent that builds slowly and hypnotically.

Tarkovsky is Russia’s greatest director and this is probably his greatest film but I also loved The Mirror (aka Zerkalo) – but just about any of his films is worth a viewing.

You can view the entire film here but without subtitles and view some clips here.

The most realized film version of Existentialism, Hiroshi Teshigahara‘s masterpiece is probably a perfect film. On the surface it’s about a man’s internal struggle over his inability to make a relationship work and his general alienation. This Sisyphus is an entomologist condemned to live material eternity in a trap that he must come to terms with. He is the insects he studies, lost in their futile struggle to build something that the earth will easily swallow up in time. All is transitory but the Self.

According to the ancient sages of India, the Self is neither the body, thoughts, feelings, nor intellect, but rather all pervasive Being/Consciousness manifesting as the Heart in all beings, from which emanates the awareness of “I” and Knowledge of the Self, which includes the realization that all knowledge is in and from the subject-”I”, the seer, not the object.

Claudia Llosa‘s debut feature film Madeinusa (pronounced Ma–den–OO–za) is a fable about the United States’ (or the Western world) influence on South America’s (Peru in this case) tribal population. It’s a fascinating portrayal of the townsfolk that doesn’t judge them, but rather presents them as they are. Their traditions are Catholic but only in a fragmented version as is their entire life which is mixed with all sorts of pagan and tribal traditions.

The drama starts with a tall, dark gringo stranger entering the town from Lima as the town is starting it’s yearly Holy Time, a kind of bacchanalian festival where anything goes and a kind of opposite world is lived for a few days. The stricking images document their rituals relating to this festival. One of the most interesting involves the men cutting off each other’s ties (symbolic phalluses) with scissors before starting an orgiastic dance where the women choose which men they want to pair off with. There’s a virgin contest which doesn’t seem unlike the Miss America (or Miss USA) pagaent and clues you into why it’s such a scandal here when one of the debutantes is shown to not be a pure. Things don’t really change fundamentally, but instead only change appearence. The titular Madeinusa wins the beauty/virginity contest, partially because she’s the daughter of the mayor – her father unfortunately has his incestuous eyes on her and Holy Time is when the virgins are deflowered.

I won’t give away any more of the plot, I’ll just say that this is a great debut feature and is a window into Peru’s tribal culture and the influence of the Western world (symbolized by the capital city, Lima) on it. Even if you don’t particularly like movies, students of anthropology will find it as fascinating as film fans find it compelling.

Michel Gondry‘s The Science of Sleep (aka La Science des rêves) explores the ways in which your dream world (a corollary to the waking world) invades your life. In some ways our dreams reveal the truth we often can’t admit. The film is like a French Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and by the same director. It’s more visionary and has less resolution, meaning it’s more open ended. America can’t stand any ambiguity but it’s fine for me. I don’t want to provide too many screens b/c it’s such a visual treat. Other than that it’s a conventional love story told in a visionary, unconventional way.

This film is the most beautifully shot ever by the master Bertolucci. A pure delight for the eyes with deft political and pychological commentary.

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello’s mind. Source

The title is a reference to a line in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” that reads: “I have heard the mermaids singing each to each / I do not think that they will sing to me.” It’s about an underdog, an artsy misfit with a good heart that overcomes her inferiority and beguiles the mermaids to sing to her. It’s not a perfect film but it has spunk and an indie feel – it’s also the first feature for director Patricia Rozema who also wrote the screenplay. It’s finally been released on DVD 18 years after its debut in Canada – it garnered a standing ovation at Cannes. A wonderful world to visit for 80 minutes with a great character played by the quirky and likable Sheila McCarthy!

Scatterbrained Polly gets a job as a secretary in Gabrielle’s art gallery. Gabrielle has a romantic relationship with the painter Mary. Polly hangs a picture by Mary believing that Gabrielle made it. Source

Fellini‘s Juliet of the Sprits is my favorite film of his although I’m definitely in the minority on this. It’s Fellini’s greatest film b/c it finds him at his most experimental but least abstruse. It’s surreal but the striking visuals are simply Juliet’s inner world externalized and with that you get a interesting depiction of the inner world of a trapped woman. Juliet is not physically trapped but psychologically – but the film documents her escape to freedom.

There are lots of colorful (literally as this was Fellini’s first color film and it shows visually) characters and inventively choreographed scenes. The cast dances across the screen, literally and figuratively and each scene seems to be caused by the drinking of some ambrosia-like liquid by Juliet. The film is sad but also hopeful and full of wonderment about a life that can be tragic and uncontrollable. Yes, this is definitely my favorite but all of Fellini’s other works are incredible too.

Giulietta degli spiriti (1965) analyzes the identity crisis of identity of a middle-aged Italian housewife, almost a female counterpart to Guido, in Fellini’s first color feature film. One of the first postwar Italian films about women’s social status in Italian culture, it is structured after the story line of 8½. Giulietta’s (Giulietta Masina) quest for psychic freedom is impeded by both her philandering husband and the critical, reprimanding women (her mother and sisters) who surround her. Her gift for seeing spirits summons a passel of them, all ghosts from her past with whom she must reconcile. Source

Lindsay Anderson‘s If…. is like a lighter but more direct version of Kubrick‘s A Clockwork Orange with the mischievous Malcolm McDowell playing the protagonist in both films. In Anderson’s film, however, you understand more fully why McDowell’s character Mick Travis is the way he is. Your frustration and rage grow until you’re relieved and horrified at the same time by the ending.

The fundamental question the film poses takes place in Mick’s history class: were the atrocities of the past the fault of a lone dictator or the collective result of everyone in the society? As time goes on it seems pretty obvious that given an extremely stressful environment, most people would still follow a Hitler-like character without a second thought and gladly scapegoat whatever problems exist on a sacrificial lamb. Hitler is more of a symbol of collective rotten-ness than a lone catalyst for atrocity although society doesn’t want that to be so. You know, it may be obvious but you can’t treat all children poorly an expect them all to be well adjusted. We create our Hitlers and Columbines and until we admit this it will happen over and over.

If…. is a classic rebellion and social commentary film that also makes one feel free and trapped simultaneously and it’s an enjoyable ride!

In an indictment of the British Boys School, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. When Mick and his friends rebel, violently, the catch phrase, “which side would you be on” becomes quite stark. Source