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'.
Heart of Glass (1976)
7.1/10
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Josef Bierbichler, Stefan Guttler, Clemens Scheitz
Werner Herzog each day put the cast into a hypnotic trance in an attempt to achieve an effect of collective hysteria in this tale of a glassblower who... Read more
I Shot Andy Warhol (1995)
6.6/10
Director: Mary Harron
Starring: Lili Taylor, Stephen Dorff, Jared Harris, Lothaire Bluteau, Martha Plimpton, Ann...
Lili Taylor is eerily convincing as Valerie Solanas, Factory fringe figure, founder and only member of SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) and the woman... Read more
Impromptu (1991)
7/10
Director: James Lapine
Starring: Judy Davis, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin
A spirited 'they do make them as well as they used to' comedy/drama about the 19th century romance between George Sand (Judy Davis) and Frederic Chopi... Read more
Inland Empire (2006)
7/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Cameron Daddo
A mesmerizing performance by Laura Dern anchors David Lynch's mindbending tale of an actress who learns that her latest movie is a remake of a film th... Read more
Jubilee (1978)
6.2/10
Director: Derek Jarman
Starring: Adam Ant, Toyah Wilcox, Jenny Runacre, Little Nell
A punk-era apocalyptic drama with Queen Elizabeth 1 being transported to the present day by her astrologer, and witnessing the virtual collapse of civ... Read more
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
8.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance", an apt summation of this mesmerizing collection of wonders both natural and man-made. S... Read more
Koyaanisqatsi ( Blu-ray ) (1982)
8.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance", an apt summation of this mesmerizing collection of wonders both natural and man-made. S... Read more
Lady in the Lake (1946)
6.6/10
Director: Robert Montgomery
Starring: Audrey Totter, Leon Ames, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Montgomery, Tom Tully
Robert Montgomery stars in and directs this snappy adaptation of Raymond Chandler's hardboiled detective mystery. The case begins when Marlowe, the pr... Read more
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
7.9/10
Director: Alain Resnais
Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoeff
Not just a defining work of the French New Wave but one of the great, lasting mysteries of modern art, Alain Resnais' epochal 'Last Year at Marienbad'... Read more
Le Gai Savoir ( The Joy of Learning ) (1969)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Juliet Berto
Patricia (Juliet Berto) and Emile (Jean-Pierre Leaud) meet nightly on a sound stage to discuss learning, discourse, and the path to revolution. Scenes... Read more