Floralis (Johnny Clyde, 2019)

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼ out of 10☼

"Birds broke their beaks for you. Wept real stars for you..."

Somewhat reminiscent of Juraj Herz's masterful rendition of Beauty and the Beast (Panna a netvor, 1978), Floralis takes the viewer to a strange place, simultaneously unrecognizable and as familiar and comforting as home. Part eco-parable and part fairy tale-ish fantasy, it brims with kaleidoscopic visuals and dense atmosphere of profound mystery. The forest where the lyrical story is set or rather, where an androgynous protagonist (gracefully portrayed by Nina Viola) gets spirited away is rendered in all of 'the forgotten colors of dreams', with the ethereally evocative score and whispery voices serving as our guides into a sort of an inner sanctum. That darkly beautiful 'micro-universe' is protected by an enigmatic creature (the author himself, heavily disguised) who adds another layer of deep melancholy to the gloomily oneiric proceedings...

They Lived in a B&W Film Until...

When Subject R disappeared from Neo-Heaven, he started to panic, whereas she remained calm, because she knew pretty well that the remnants of her Luna-C would soon become brighter. The last fragmentation of the Word wasn’t as successful as they hoped for, yet the mirror before them regained its ability to show them the worlds they had never seen before. Initially skeptical, they eventually realized that Nothing brought truncated salvation.

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Out of Our Minds (Tony Stone, 2009)

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼ out of 10☼

An integral part of a conceptual multimedia project (album + film + comic) conceived by the Canadian musician Melissa Auf der Maur (ex member of The Smashing Pumpkins and Hole) and her filmmaker husband Tony Stone, Out of Our Minds pretty much justifies its title by providing the viewer with a bewildering, dialogue-free phantasmagoria (or rather, strange ecological parable?) in which the Vikings, bleeding trees and a car crash get mystically entwined, transcending the time barriers. Drenched in a dark, ambient rock score growing progressively heavier and venturing into a psychedelic territory, the meticulously composed widescreen imagery pulls us deeper into a bleak, grungy, Twin Peaks-esque dreamworld of an enigmatic protagonist - most probably, Ms Auf der Maur's alter ego - whose near-death / past-life experience opens the portal to a new, spiritual dimension of many secrets.

This fine example of personal cinema is available on Heathen Films' official Vimeo channel.

'The Innate Mirror' Diptych

Down the path of severe and persistent irrationality, I often stumble across an entity which appears as an extremely blurry dream and no matter how long I look at it or how hard I try to decipher its immediate surroundings, this soft, abstract object doesn't become any clearer. In a way, it torments me, yet I find the torment irresistible, allowing myself to be completely submerged in it, regardless of the outcome. Sometimes while 'drowning', I find a lost piece of myself, but when I try to put it back where (I think) it belongs, I realize that it has already changed its shape along with the empty space that's supposed to be its 'slot'. So, I dissolve it and drink it, the honeyed poison of my own creation...

The Most Pleasurable Pain: N Pushes the Waves Away

 

 

A Dreamwalker's Deep Sway: H Invokes the Bitter Rain

 

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Simulacrum: A Rule Is an Illusion (Post-Apocalyptic Bonus)

Our sadness evolves and mutates into a pearl.
If we break open the shell, it won't disappear.
It will only grow.

My latest and one of the longest series, Simulacrum: A Rule Is an Illusion, obviously refuses to die, so I guess it won't hurt to increase the number of pieces by 2... And who knows, maybe I'll play necromancer once again?

Simulacrum pt. I / Simulacrum pt. II / Simulacrum pt. III

So Eager to Start All Over Again

Under the Watchful Eye, in a Jiffy

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Las Meninas (Ihor Podolchak, 2008)

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼(☼) out of 10☼

As whispery, disembodied voices engulf you in a thick, almost palpable miasma, the somnambulist-like protagonists - the members of a dysfunctional family or out-of-time manifestations of an aging couple - thread their ways through moldering memories, unquenched desires and unresolved feuds reflected in the absolutely mesmerizing chiaroscuro compositions worthy of comparison to the works of Baroque masters.

The inert, elliptical, highly lyrical, psychosexually charged and unapologetically hermetic 'narrative' swings you between the de-sentimentalized past and the unconscious, hallucinatory present, simultaneously pulling you into the quicksand of continually thwarted attempts to rationalize it. (Think being suffocated inside of the gelatinous embodiment of a recurring nightmare that, for some strange reasons, feels comforting... like the ultimate truth frozen in the moment of death.)

On top of that, Oleksandr Shchetynsky and Yuriy Yaremchuk provide a dissonant, haunting, disturbingly sensual score in which cello and piano act like lovers whose passion often borders violence, deepening the disorienting effect of inspired, yet tricky visuals. Soft focuses, elongated shadows, disquieting close-ups, distorted camera angles, and the brilliant use of mirrors create the atmosphere of inescapable claustrophobia and stark hopelessness, with only a few brief moments of (exterior) relief during the prologue and epilogue.

Certainly an acquired taste, Las Meninas is one of those films that will either frustrate you or plunge you into a state of ecstatic trance. It makes a great companion piece to Raul Ruiz's surreal fantasy-drama On Top of the Whale, Aleksandr Sokurov's period piece Mournful Unconcern, Oliver Smolders's brooding mystery Nuit noire or Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais's alchemical phantasmagoria The Kingdom of Shadows.

The film can be viewed HERE.

Unicórnio (Eduardo Nunes, 2017)

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼(☼) out of 10☼

In his (mighty impressive!) sophomore fiction film, Eduardo Nunes delivers a lyrical meditation on love, life, death and God, masterly blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, while providing the viewer with an immersive sensory experience. Based on short stories by the acclaimed Brazilian writer Hilda Hilst and told or rather, depicted from the perspective of an adolescent protagonist, Maria (an assured debut by Bárbara Luz), this fairy tale-ish psychological / coming-of-age drama eschews plot in favor of jaw-dropping visuals and dense, somewhat ambiguous mood. Leaving you with questions rather than answers, Unicórnio (Unicorn) progressively pulls you deeper into a dream-like state by virtue of its long takes, sparse dialogue and languorous pacing which surely demands an extra dose of patience. The awe-inspiring, ultra-wide screen imagery oft-bursting with highly saturated colors (many kudos to cinematographer Mauro Pinheiro Jr.) is nothing short of magical, transforming even the most banal of actions into a pure poetry heightened by Zé Nogueira's evocative score.