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'.
Leviathan (2012)
6.5/10
Director: Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Filmed off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts - at one time the whaling capital of the world as well as Melville's inspiration for Moby Dick; it... Read more
Longtime Companion (1990)
7.5/10
Director: Norman Rene
Starring: Stephen Caffrey, Patric Cassidy, Brian Cousins
An absorbing, revealing account detailing the effects of Aids on the American gay community in the 80's as seen through the eyes of two friends. Campb... Read more
Love Live Long (2008)
5.5/10
Director: Mike Figgis
Starring: Daniel Lapaine, Sophie Winkleman
Mike Figgis pushes the boundaries of cinema with this experimental digital feature about a chance encounter in Turkey. Originally approached to make a... Read more
Loving Vincent (2017)
7.9/10
Director: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
Starring: John Sessions, Chris O'Dowd, Saoirse Ronan, Jerome Flynn, Aidan Turner, Helen Mc...
In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's fina... Read more
Loving Vincent (Blu-Ray) (2017)
7.9/10
Director: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
Starring: John Sessions, Chris O'Dowd, Saoirse Ronan, Jerome Flynn, Aidan Turner, Helen Mc...
In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's fina... Read more
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
8.4/10
Director: Dziga Vertov
One of the most extraodinary films in the history of cinema. An exhilarating and often hilarious montage showing Moscow people at work and play and th... Read more
Manderlay (2005)
7.4/10
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Willem Dafoe, Isaach De Bankole, Danny Glover, Lauren Bacal...
The second in Lars von Trier's 'American' trilogy, after 'Dogville' is shot in the same theatrical style, and features Bryce Dallas Howard in the Nico... Read more
Marat / Sade (1967)
7.6/10
Director: Peter Brook
Starring: Patrick Magee, Glenda Jackson, Clifford Rose
('The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sa... Read more
Maya Deren: Experimental Films (1943)
7.4/10
Director: Maya Deren
Starring: Maya Deren
The highly personal, innovatively told works of this seminal American avant-garde filmmaker have never failed to fascinate, and are now collected on o... Read more
Mister Lonely (2007)
6.4/10
Director: Harmony Korine
Starring: Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Werner Herzog
In Paris, a sweet, shy Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) is befriended by a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (Samantha Morton), who quickly convinces... Read more