Avant-garde / Experimental
Avant-garde is a word from the French, meaning 'ahead of the crowd'. In contemporary English, we'd say it's on the 'cutting edge'. Avant-garde filmmakers want to experiment with new ideas, forms, techniques, and expressions - and are often said to be 'ahead of their time'. Avant-garde films are characterized by a high degree of experimentation - whether it be in manipulation of narrative materials, highly stylized visual representation, or radical departures from the norms and conventions current at the time, avant-garde film is always a vehicle for the filmmaker's expression. Surrealism, abstract studies of light and form, Dadaism, and impressionistic studies of people and things figure heavily in early works of the genre.
Below is a Alice's extensive collection in this genre.
Right: The famous eyeball scene from Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali's 'Un Chien Andalou'.
Daft Punk's Electroma (2006)
7/10
Director: Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo
Starring: Peter Hurteau, Michael Reich
Written and directed by French musical duo, Daft Punk, this is the story of two robots driving through the California desert on a quest to become huma... Read more
Dottie Gets Spanked (1994)
7.3/10
Director: Todd Haynes
Starring: Evan Bonifant, Robert Pall, Julie Halston, Barbara Garrick
Writer/director Todd Haynes made this stylish, tender-hearted short between his critically acclaimed features 'Poison' and 'Safe', and the deeply pers... Read more
Downtown 81 (1981)
7.2/10
Director: Edo Bertoglio
Starring: Deborah Harry, John Lurie, Vincent Gallo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kid Creole
AKA 'New York Beat Movie'. This film was two decades in the making, only recently released for all to see 'New York...the way it was...when it was...'... Read more
Enter the Void (2009)
7.3/10
Director: Gaspar Noe
Starring: Paz de la Huerta, Nathaniel Brown, Olly Alexander
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young American drug dealer and addict... Read more
Eraserhead (1977)
7.4/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Allen Joseph, Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Laurel Near
Inspired by his time spent living in Philadelphia, David Lynch's nightmarish cult odyssey follows a high-haired young man living in a run-down apartme... Read more
Europa ( aka Zentropa ) (1992)
7.7/10
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier, Ernst Hugo
This penetrating and mesmeric trip into the dark soul of Europe follows a young American pacifist of German descent who sojourns to post-WWII Deutschl... Read more
Faust (1994)
3.1/10
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Starring: Petr Cepek, Andrew Sachs
Jan Svankmajer's follow-up to his acclaimed 'Alice' is an equally bizarre version of the myth of Dr. Faustus. Combining live action with stop-motion a... Read more
Fritz The Cat (1972)
6.3/10
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Starring: Skip Hinnant, Rosetta Le Noire, Judy Engles
This x-rated cartoon by Ralph Bakshi hit a responsive chord with the counterculture audience of the seventies. This now classic cult rendition of Robe... Read more
Go Fish (1994)
5.6/10
Director: Rose Troche
Starring: Guinevere Turner, V S Brodie, T Wendy McMillan
Described as a 'fun and feisty lesbian romance' telling the tale of a young writer Max (co-writer and producer Guinevere Turner), searching for a suit... Read more
Hail Mary (1985)
6.7/10
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Philippe Lacoste
A reverent modern retelling of the Incarnation and Birth of Christ. The setting is 1980s France where Mary works at her father's gas station. Her sele... Read more