#surrealist film
NEKO-MIMI (1993)
Directed by Jun Kurosawa
Doomsy’s Rating: 87/100
NEKO-MIMI is a film that acts as a slipstream to almost every emotion possible, floating through time and space from elation to enmity. It sets you adrift in a headspace of beauty and darkness, but Jun Kurosawa effortlessly blends the gorgeously grainy lo-fi cinematography with a full spectrum of hues, tints, and colors that extended to every area of the rainbow so that the mind can feel them. The experience stands as more or less a mood ring of a film, changing palette and filming techniques with the unstable emotions of the characters, who remain lost in permanent thought loops that only lead to their irrevocable self-destruction. In terms of experimental avant-garde Japanese cinema, this is right up there for best I’ve seen. A remarkable gem of haunting surrealism.
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The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
Directed by Sergei Parajanov
Doomsy’s Rating: 92/100 (on my Great Films list!)
Serving as an amazing double feature with Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Sergei Parajanov’s untouchable art-house masterwork The Color of Pomegranates is a one-of-a-kind experience that is an absolute visual feast from start to finish. The film is based on the life of Armenian poet Sayat-Nova, and is told through in a series of tableau set-pieces of rich symbolism and psychedelic mise-en-scene manipulation. A clear influence on several prominent pieces of modern media (namely the music videos for R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and Lady Gaga’s “911″), this is a spoonfeeding of the Armenian oral tradition and its glorious cultural history. Although heavily censored by the Soviet Union against the wishes of Parajanov, likely for its less-than-flattering subtext about the occupation of the Soviets, the film remains a transcendent and enchanting journey through a culture never seen before on film. The use of color, so exquisite in its breadth, is nearly kaleidoscopic and wholly unforgettable. There is a certain patience required for a film like this, as its not a film that is best served in narrative terms, but that should not deter anyone from such an enigmatic and beautiful work. If you like your films a little impenetrable and mysterious, this is a tone poem for the ages.
Watched on Criterion Channel.
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