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'.
The Committee (1968)
6.3/10
Director: Peter Sykes
Starring: Robert Lloyd, Paul Jones
This independent black-and-white film noir stars Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame and is a unique and controversial document of Britain in the 1960s. A... Read more
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
8/10
Director: Luis Bunuel
Starring: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier
Luis Bunuel's classic satire is filled with savage wit and some of the director's most surrealistic images. Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig and Stephane... Read more
The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume 1 (1947)
Director: Kenneth Anger
Starring: Kenneth Anger, Gordon Gray, Andre Soubeyran
A pioneer of the American undeground film movement, Anger's films were largely rejected in his home country, finding more of a following across the At... Read more
The Fountain (2006)
7.3/10
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Hugh Jackman, Mark Margolis, Rachel Weisz, Cliff Curtis, Sean Pat...
Darren Aronofsky directs his wife, Rachel Weisz, and Hugh Jackman in this abstract sci-fi odyssey about one man's thousand-year quest to save the woma... Read more
The Garden (1990)
6.8/10
Director: Derek Jarman
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Johnny Miles, Kevin Collins
Controversial director Derek Jarman's stunning examination of organized religion and its role in the oppression of homosexuals depicts the arrest and... Read more
The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
6/10
Director: Volker Schlondorff
Starring: Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall
A stylish adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel of the not-so-distant future where certain young women are used to bear 'pure' children for the milita... Read more
The Holy Mountain (1973)
7.9/10
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky
After "El Topo" and with the production assistance of John Lennon and ABKCO Films and the desire to become "the Cecil B. De Mille of the underground",... Read more
The Indian Runner (1991)
7.1/10
Director: Sean Penn
Starring: David Morse, Viggo Mortensen, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Charles Bronson,...
A stunningly realised character study centering on the stormy relationship between a highway patrolman (David Morse) and his 'loose cannon' brother (V... Read more
The Lover (1992)
6.9/10
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Starring: Jane March, Tony Leung (Ka Fai), Frederique Meininger
An exotic, erotic adaptation of Marguerite Duras' autobiographical novel about a teenage girl who's initiated into sex by an older Chinese dandy in 19... Read more
The Magus (1968)
5.9/10
Director: Guy Green
Starring: Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Anna Karina
John Fowles's complex novel (he also wrote the screenplay) is the basis for this bizarre and surreal classic. Michael Caine is an English school teac... Read more