Celebrating unique and magical cinematic genres

As the holidays begin to speed to conclusion, it’s as good a time as any to spend some time enjoying films that offer unique and magical visions of genres. This week’s films are very different and only tentatively linked. They remind us that the power of the medium is at its best still, infinite with possibility if explored by those with the drive and imaginative power to push its boundaries.

A dark, surreal reimagining of a classic children’s tale remade as a dark, psychologically uncomfortable nightmare for adults; a documentary about the worst that human beings are capable of realised as a strange series of dreamlike fantasies that only make them more horrific; and a pop-reference-infused vampire genre-bender that is both uniquely entertaining and quietly provocative in the space it opens up for wider interpretations.

These are all films that do much more than you would think possible from their premises by not being afraid to try new, brave ideas, and end up being all the more remarkable for it.

THE ARTHOUSE ESSENTIAL

Alice - YouTube

Czech surrealist master Jan Svankmajer finds a perfect fit for his dark, twisted fantasies in Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s tale in this 1989 adaptation. As Alice tells the audience in the film’s opening minutes, this is only “perhaps” a film for children. As Svankmajer’s distinctively macabre stop-motion visions begin to unspool, it very definitely shows itself to not be Disney’s Alice and something far more suited to the unsettling visions of David Lynch, though remaining Svankmajer’s uniquely singular interpretation.

Alice is the only human in a world stuffed full of memorably created puppets but Svankmajer still manages to use his ingenious tricks to make her grow and shrink and become her own doll as she gives in to the dark absurdity of the world she discovers when she follows the white rabbit down his hole.

As critic Geoff Andrew wrote, “no other filmmaker — and that includes David Lynch — is so consistently inventive in his ability to marry pure, startling nonsense with rigorous logic, black wit with piercing psychological insights.”

The version of Carroll’s story that emerges is stripped of light, enveloped in darkness and is far scarier than you’d like any children to believe it could be. It is, however, also one that speaks to the darker, psychologically unnerving themes of the story and of fairy tales more generally. It’s a dark, compelling and unforgettable spell of a film that lives in the shadows and uncomfortable corners of the mind and it remains arguably the finest version of the much-loved classic ever committed to screen.

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THE STONE COLD CLASSIC

The Act of Killing  - YouTube

Joshua Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking and audaciously inventive film is part documentary, part collective therapy and fully a one-of-a kind cinematic experience. It’s a 2012 examination of the terrible atrocities committed during the brutal height of the dictatorship in Indonesia, where an estimated 500,000 to 2.5-million people were killed as part of a horrific anti-communist purge.

The challenge for Oppenheimer is how one makes these past horrors seem as relevant and sickening as they were when they happened almost half a century before he attempts to put them on film. His answer is one of recent cinema’s most innovative and unique innovations. Oppenheimer searches for men who were part of the regime and enacted killings in the service of their virulently anti-communist masters — most of them live free lives and are celebrated heroes for the role they played. 

He then convinces them to participate in a macabre theatre therapy session where they re-enact their crimes with surreal and nightmarish results. While they may not always lead to some sort of self-realisation or atonement on the part of the perpetrators, they certainly bring home for the audience the brutality of the past and its lingering and pervasive influence on the shaping of the present. It’s a difficult but provocative film that pushes the boundaries of its genre to new and devastating heights.

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THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night  - YouTube

Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2014 debut is an unforgettable genre-bending indie that mashes together elements from Iranian New Wave cinema, Spaghetti westerns, film noir and classic horror to create what’s flippantly described as “the first Iranian vampire western”. In essence, it is a film that defies easy categorisation and stands out as one of the 21st century’s most assured and cinematic original.

Shot in black and white, it’s the story of the eponymous girl, “a chador-wearing skateboarding vampire” who, in long dialogue-free stretches makes her way through the industrial wasteland of Bad City, a desolate town populated by unaware outsider types soon to become the victims of the girl’s wrath and revenge.

In its simple premise and with its memorably drawn characters and situations the film ultimately manages to offer a fresh and unique take on the vampire genre while also making space for multiple other readings: feminist western revenge tale, immigrant experience metaphor and imaginative film-noir revisionism. It’s unlike anything else you’re likely to see.

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