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'.
Spectres of the Spectrum (1999)
6.4/10
Director: Craig Baldwin
Starring: Sean Kilkoyne, Caroline Koebel
Mixing bizarre narration with footage taken from educational films, vintage TV shows, cartoons, commercials, and early cinematic works, filmmaker Crai... Read more
Suture (1993)
6.6/10
Director: David Siegel, Scott McGehee
Starring: Mel Harris, Dennis Haysbert, Sab Shimono, Dina Merrill
A unique, creepy, independently produced psychological thriller about Vincent (Michael Harris), suspected of murdering his father, who hatches a schem... Read more
Syndromes and a Century (2006)
7.5/10
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Offering two separate stories or fragments set in hospitals, one rural and possibly in the past, one urban and possibly in the future. Or perhaps both... Read more
Tank Girl (1995)
5.3/10
Director: Rachel Talalay
Starring: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Malcolm McDowell
Apocalypse - ker-pow! Lori Petty is the British comic book-inspired heroine who enjoys cigarettes, beer, her half-man, half-kangaroo boyfriend and her... Read more
Testament of Orpheus (1960)
7.6/10
Director: Jean Cocteau
Starring: Jean Cocteau, Henri Cremieux, Edouard Dermithe
In his last film, legendary writer/artist/filmmaker Jean Cocteau portrays an 18th-century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom.... Read more
Testament of Orpheus / The Blood of a Poet (1959)
Director: Jean Cocteau
Starring: Jean Cocteau, Henri Cremieux, Edouard Dermithe
In his last film, legendary writer/artist/filmmaker Jean Cocteau portrays an 18th-century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom.... Read more
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
7/10
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring: Kei Fujiwara, Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomoroh Taguchi
Compared to the work of Lynch and Cronenberg, telling the strange tale of a man's gradual metamorphosis into a synergy of flesh and metal. Tomoroh Tag... Read more
The Arbor (2010)
7.2/10
Director: Clio Barnard
A fascinating fusion of narrative and documentary from director Clio Barnard, "The Arbor" tells the powerful true story of Bradford playwright Andrea... Read more
The Belly of an Architect (1987)
7/10
Director: Peter Greenaway
Starring: Brian Dennehy, Lambert Wilson, Chloe Webb
Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy), a distinguished American architect, is invited to Rome with his young attractive wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to set u... Read more
The Brothers Quay: 1979-2003 (2003)
8.4/10
Director: The Brothers Quay
This 2-disc set celebrates the work of the amazing identical twin animators, The Quay Brothers, who have produced a unique body of work, and made a ma... Read more