Category Archives: Avant-Garde Film

The Animated Films of Painter György Kovásznai

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

While visiting Your Daily Cartoon, I watched an animated film by Hungarian painter György Kovásznai.  I liked the calm mishmash of drawing styles and quiet humor. The 1965 film is called Mesék a m?veszet világából (Tales From the World of Art). It has no subtitles but is pretty easy to follow, taking a bemused look at several kinds of art. The first part is an action movie, the second is a theatrical piece, the third is a piano recital.

This one is called Várakozni jó (Waiting for Good). It’s about a traffic jam with a truck that suddenly opens its back doors and explodes into a 1969 rock & roll jam. The wild sketchy ever-changing animation style is more psychedelic than most commercialized sixties psychedelia could ever be.

This one is Gitáros fiú a régi képtárban (Boy Guitarist of the Old Hits) from 1964. It’s simply a guitarist playing and dancing his way through artworks by old masters presented in a very avant-garde fashion. Understanding the art is one thing, but the person who can truly enjoy it is far ahead in the game.

Monologue Under White Light! – A Film by Samira Eskandarfar

by Cimaxion

A ravishing beauty from Iran! Look at this mysterious and subtle film by director Samira Eskandarfar. Her figures drift through time and space in a stage setting that seems open-ended and universal. The underlying themes and messages are probably far more complex than I can ascertain without a proper understanding of Iranian culture. But the film stands as a mysterious and slightly harrowing glimpse into the progress of attraction, love and communication between individuals.  The characters, played by Kazem Sayahi Saharkhiz and Faranak Miri, engage in mundane conversation, offer each other drinks, smoke cigarettes, make eyes at each other, play music on a tape recorder and disappoint each other in all the little ways of a normal life.  But they seem symbolic of something greater and perhaps very much to do with the filmmaker’s Iran.  There are some amazing artists working with enormous expressive power in Iran.  Samira Eskandarfar is one of them.

By the way, the filmmaker is also a painter.

Visit the filmmaker’s web site.

Ménilmontant – 1926 French Film by Dimitri Kirsanoff

by Cimaxion

The film takes its name from a neighborhood in Paris. It was directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff and is considered to be his greatest work. It moves very quickly, using a montage technique that tells the story without a single intertitle.  It’s a riveting and powerful tale of disillusionment and violence.  The lead actress is wonderful and has some of the best eyes for silent film I’ve ever seen.

Roland’s Adventures in Wonderland – A Film by Istvan Horkay

by Cimaxion

Artist Istvan Horkay made this strangely mesmerizing film that combines Alice in Wonderland, the elephant man, 19th century theater, silent film, modern computer graphics, children’s illustration and digital readouts.  There are three films going on at the same time in a beautiful triptych.

Culture Shock, Level One – A Film by Bill Mousoulis

by Cimaxion

Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film posted a film by Bill Mousoulis called The Experimenting Angel. I liked it. So I’ve posted another of Mousoulis’ films. It features Jennifer Levy who returns from a long absence to Australia and feels dislocated while visiting a city. She wonders why the people seem so ‘deflated’ as they wander through various public/corporate spaces like malls. The film captures something increasingly common worldwide which is that quiet, blank, but seemingly normal behavior encouraged by any structure designed and erected with a corporate idea behind it. We all know how we are expected to behave when we walk past a row of Gaps, Starbucks, Banana Republics and Wetzle’s Pretzels. We obey. We perform the routine and go about our business making sure that we are perceived as correctly normal. We are guests in someone else’s house, even in our public spaces. We behave like new guests, ingratiating ourselves to the dome camera in the ceiling.  The cell phone is the absolute symbol of complete obeisance to the corporate superstructure looming above us.  We are told to engage in meaningless chatter while we walk, drive, breathe, eat, date, watch movies, run, bike, and work.  We are told to do this until it seems like normal and seems to make perfect sense.  It is as logical as being told to drop a penny on the ground every third step for every day of your life.  Steve Jobs tells you to leave him a penny on the ground every third step of every day of your life… and you damn well do it.  You know how many times Steve Jobs uses a cell phone during an average day?  None.  Why?  Because he’s much smarter than you are.