#SURREALISM WARPED REALITY MOVIE#

#SURREALISM WARPED REALITY MOVIE#

A famous example of this is Being John Malkovich (1991), which is about people finding a portal to take over the body of the real-world actor John Malkovich that is, a movie about a movie star with a totally irrational plot. Most surrealist masterpieces aren’t so explicit in having the characters talk to the viewers, but they often do emit a certain nuanced awareness that makes clear the division between the movie and real life. When the characters in the movie acknowledge your presence as a viewer of media, they are breaking the third wall. The third wall is what separates you as viewer of a movie and the plot/characters partaking in it. Ripples in the fourth wall and other meta commentary.

A dream-like haze covers the enigmatic plot of Eyes Wide Shut.Ĥ. How did a major distributor and production house green-light and market a so-called comedy film with a title explicitly about child abuse? Why does Freddy’s abuse have almost nothing to do with the plot of the film? A less extreme example is how a movie such as Donnie Darko (2001) American Psycho (2000), or Sorry to Bother You (2018) end on notes that seem to intentionally cast doubt on everything you just watched, making you reconsider what actually just happened. The most extreme example of this is Freddy Got Fingered (2001), a movie lacking any semblance of rationality. But a common trait in surrealist films is to intentionally make the film’s meaning very hard to decipher, to turn the film’s deeper message into an unreadable hieroglyph where the viewer can project whatever meaning they want onto it. Uncertainty about artistic intent, misunderstanding, and gonzo dynamics. Forbidden Zone employs direct surrealism with out of this world characters and costume design.ģ. Or for the most literal instance, consider Enter The Void (2009), which never has a stable camera the focus is constantly being lost, and actual visual distortions are rampant throughout the movie. Or the way Suspiria (1977) brings unnatural colors over almost everything, yet it still feels real. Take for instance the way the movie The Tree of Life (2011) blends normal sequences of mundane moments with dreamscapes, with hazy memories, and then with psychedelic imagery from beyond the terrestrial plain. What one visually sees in a surrealist film is not so much what is there, but a haze of what can be imagined to be there. While impressionism and surrealism in traditional art history are different movements, they share a common thread because they both distort and play with visual reality in highly subjective ways. Impressionistic, psychedelic, or bizarre cinematography. Sorry to Bother You (2008) is a surreal and meta-movie written and directed by rapper Boots Riley.Ģ. This kind of irrationality underpins great surrealist movies. Similarly, in An Andalusian Dog (1929), the film has no real sense of linear or chronological time but assumes that is normal.

For example, in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014), the movie is intentionally filled with subtle anachronisms and glitches that give you the feeling that something is deeply off with the setting.

Surrealist movies often have strange “Easter eggs,” or glitches, in them that are meant to subconsciously put the viewer in a phantasmagorical state where they are questioning what is reality and what is fantasy. Secret glitches in reality and trippy nuances. It Follows changes seasons without explanation and in a way that is so subtle that first-time viewers miss it.ġ. Mind-bending, crazy and trippy visuals are surely one component, but let’s go even deeper. What exactly makes something a surreal movie? What are surreal films? What is the defining characteristic of surrealist cinematic history? Here are the main traits of surrealism in movies.

Surrealism warped reality