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'.
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
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
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
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
Controversial director Derek Jarman's stunning examination of organized religion and its role in the oppression of homosexuals depicts the arrest and... Read more
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
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
A stunningly realised character study centering on the stormy relationship between a highway patrolman (David Morse) and his 'loose cannon' brother (V... Read more
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
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