What is a Surreal Movie? | Video Essay
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- Опубликовано: 16 июл 2024
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What is a surreal movie? Is it a film filled with creepy and weird imagery? A stream of visual non-sequiturs with the only goal to provoke? In this video we want to show how movie surrealism first started out and how we can recognize some of it's lasting and derived appeal.
Make sure to give us your Surreal movie recommendations down in the comments.
Video made by Moises & Sergio Velasquez
■ Time Stamps:
0:00 - Intro
3:05 - Irrational
7:02 - Dreams
10:14 - Ad
11:26 - Nightmares
14:43 - Outro
■ Gear:
Microphone - amzn.to/3L3x8TG
Audio Mixer - amzn.to/3L5vQaB
■ Books:
Surrealism and Cinema - amzn.to/3R3rHFH
The Unsilvered Screen - amzn.to/3f93z7a
■ T-Shirts:
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■ Socials:
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Twitter: / moivel
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■ Sources:
1,5,6,7 - The First Surrealism Manifesto by André Breton
2,4 - Surrealism and Cinema by Michael Richardson
3,9 - The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film edited by Graeme Harper and Rob Stone
8 - The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud
■ Music:
By Eduardo Gonzalez
/ edgmusic1
/ edgmusic
■ Movies Clips in the Video Essay:
500 Days of Summer
8 ½
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Alice
Being John Malkovich
Brazil
Dimensions of Dialogue
Donnie Darko
Enter the Void
Eraserhead
Fantastic Planet
Faust
Food
Holy Motors
House
Inception
Inland Empire
L’Âge d’Or
Little Otik
Long Day's Journey into Night
Mirror
Modern Times
Naked Lunch
Paprika
Shutter Island
Spellbound
Synecdoche, New York
That Obscure Object of Desire
The Big Lebowski
The Blood of a Poet
The Color of Pomegranates
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
The Exterminating Angel
The Fall
The Holy Mountain
The Science of Sleep
The Seashell and the Clergyman
Un Chien Andalou
Vertigo
Videodrome
Wild Strawberries
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#Movies #Surrealism 
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What are your favourite Surreal movies?
Tenshi no Tamago and David Lynch's Rabbits :)
I think Brazil is amazing
And (though not related to surrealism) I think it still fits well how society and power work
Altered States
Satoshi Kon and Koji Yamamura's work by far.
(Also gotta give a shout to Inio Asano, especially Nijigahara & Punpun)
i'm thinking of ending things
I really love Paprika because the weird transition to another scene or different places really makes me feels like in a dream.
Would recommend Satoshi Kon's only series, Paranoia Agent. Pretty much my all time fav anime
@@jickay yeah, I've already watch it. A masterpiece indeed.
@@jickay I love this damn show. Nobody i know has seen it though which is weird since it came on Toonami so I feel like more people would have seen it. And I am not an anime fan but Paprika has always stuck with me. Absolutely love it
the cell?
Dont hug me im scared is a good set of youtube short videos.
Yeah that is a great webseries👍
omg, yes, thaat is so beautiful
Sounds interesting.
I loved 'I'm thinking of ending things' the way they were able to subtly imply that everything may not be as it seems just as the protagonist is working out the exact same thing. How they were able to unravel reality while exploring the human mind was incredible.
I heard they're not making a second season which pisses me off cause I loved the first season so much
I really recommend the book. Ending is much better!
Being someone with immense social anxiety, "mother!" felt like one of my nightmares in how relentless it is. I get a lot of people see it mainly for it's main theme of our relationship with the earth and religion and whatnot, but it fed directly into nightmares about losing what control you had over a place you thought was safe to others, being ignored by people you thought cared about you or by strangers just to spite you, and things changing so quickly you feel absolutely helpless to what's going on. It's a weird, stressful, horrific movie that I commend for making me feel things I've only experienced in nightmares, but I also never want to watch it again because of that 😅
I love that movie. It's so tense, captivating, oppressive, batshit crazy and yes, it works pretty well as a mere home invasion horror thriller. Aronofsky in general is a great director, he also made the either surreal Black Swan and Requiem for A Dream which I love even more
Dude, the scenes where people won't leave the house and sit everywhere... I was dying lol
I felt similarly about Climax, by Gaspar Noé. While it's certainly not as upfront about its themes as mother!, it still delves into that surreal, almost Artaud-esque onslaught. And like mother!, I'm never watching it again
The surreal moments in Sorry to Bother You were both funny and shocking. Definitely worth a mention
I was not expecting the horses!
Tetsuo: The Iron Man! Such a bizarre film but one of my favorites.
Indeed!
964 Pinocchio is a fantastic movie in the same vein
this reminds me of perfect blue and how the narration keeps pushing u from forming a concrete logic to lean on. in the end youre just as confused and lost as the main character who has lost herself and the truth of her reality. the sequence where she keeps waking up from nightmares but some of them bleed into her real life and then she wakes up again is so good at doing so
I love this genre, too many good ones for me to pick: Enter the Void, Enemy, Society, Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Being John Malkovich, A Field in England...one of my favorite genres for sure!
Lost Highway, Black Swan ^^
@@auriculus3058 I love Black Swan, but I've actually never seen Lost Highway!
Dining Room/There is Nothing
I love Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1989 horror film, Santa Sangre.
Like his other films its both violent and packed with surreal imagery. Though it's considerably toned down from its predecessors, and the use of symbolism helps to show the main protagonists crumbling sanity.
Just watched The Holy Mountain recently & it instantly converted me into a Jodorowsky fan.
That was a cinematic experience that can pretty much never be replicated. Highly recommend.
Agreed! I've watched The Holy Mountain, El Topo and Santa Sangre, and all three were like no other film I have ever seen before.
@@robertdochter277 Poesia Sin Fin is great too.
Santa Sangre is my favourite Jodorowsky movie. At the end I nearly cried.
The Lighthouse is definitely my favourite surreal movie.
Wonderful movie but I’m not sure I would consider it a surreal movie
@@noegogniat1548 Yeah it really wouldn't IMO. But then again, a lot of things that are surrealist are brushed over by post-lynch surrealism fans and a lot of things that aren't surrealist are taken as if they were. The Lighthouse is as surrealist as any horror literary work from the late 19th century to mid-20th century. Poe, Stoker, Byron, Wyndham, Polidori, there's a bunch of authors from those times that Lighthouse reminds me of, but I don't see Cocteau, Buñuel, Dalí, Clair in it much at all. So after Lynch people assume that the stereotypical "nonsensical" "dreamlike" is surrealist. It's such a banalization/americanization of the whole idea.
And the slight nudge to Lovecraft makes it even better!
I think it’s more horror and psychological than surreal.
Admit it! You're fond of me lobster!
Oh, also Soderbergh 'Kafka', or Orson Welles' 'The Trial'
These vids are great to watch before bed. Always happy when a new one is out.
The Surreal genre is new to me. Didn't know such is a thing. As I kept watching through this video, came into my mind.
I can't tell wheter the movie could be sorted as a surreal movie, but the nightmarish tone of it felt so eerie to me. All those alcohol-induced flashbacks, montages, fantasies, and hallucinations are jumbled together to the point of not knowing which is the real event that took place in that island.
As the ending credit rolls, I felt like I passed through a feverish nightmare of a guilty man, and I couldn't make the sense out of it. I like to dissect the 'lesson' of films after I watch one, so the unanswered mystery of The Lighthouse crawls inside my mind from time to time, making me uncomfortable.
the forbidden zone
by richard elfman
Holy mountain is my favourite, it says so much, without actually saying that, but what it says and in the way that may make your head spin but in a good way.
An extremely underrated film in this genre is Forbidden Zone. It basically is a movie that sets out to be a film version of a 1930's Max Fleischer cartoon but even stranger. Including pushing the envelope of many things since considered taboo that old cartoons would casually do. But also based on the ideas and concepts created at live Oingo Boingo concerts. It creates a tone that is both unsettling but comedic, and just a little bit innocently offensive, on top of this, with a truly absurd story.
ding ding ding teh winner
The Cell, most definitely. Also directed by Tarsem Singh!
Screened never misses, great video as always and thanks for the recommendations. I'll definetly be checking out Bunel works, loved Un Chien just wish Dali had worked on more films.
Satoshi Kon is one of my favourite surrealist directors of all time, Paprika and Perfect Blue are awesome but one that i cant recommend enough is the mini-series Paranoia Agent. An all time classic, depressingly relevant and ahead of time
I really like Paranoia Agent!
I love how you are aware of Anime CLASSICS!! Perfect blue and paprika are in my favorite movies of all time. To see them knowingly referenced and understanding the western movies that pulled from these Classic Anime movies, its refreshing to see them acknowledged.
I honestly think Paprika gets too much mention for surrealism in movies. For me, it was Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue that was the best expression of surrealism in cinema. You literally become as disoriented as the main characters when trying to keep up with what's happening in the film. And the film is also a great statement about how our public personas don't always reflect our true self, a message more relevant than ever in the age of social media.
‘You become as disoriented as the main character.” What’s unclear about that? How does the word literally improve the sentence?
Amazing video my friend!
Congrats
When the Covid-19 epidemic started, i discovered psychedelic movies and along with them surrealist movies.
My mind was blown away the creativity, dreamlike movies.
So i started to discover this kind of movies, animation movies, games like crazy.
I advice you people, to just a look at a different world in this kind of contents.
Isn't the art primary goal is show a different reality to us? Cut bond with actual reality for going another dimension
I guarentee whatever tagged with words like "Surrealist", "Psychedelic", "Trippy" is going to blow your mind.
You should look them up sometime.
i never realized how many surreal movies ive seen until watching this. so many of my favorites were already mentioned, but i cant help thinking about 1999s J-horror "Audition" as being atleast half surreal
The thing I love about being a surreal artist is because of such a imagination freedom. Mixing random things together and creating the strangest artworks ever. Also using only B&W colors makes the things blend together and unrealisticly connect them.
Great video btw. Love this channel ;)
Also anyone who's interested in real quality wtf surreal movies - just check out anything from Czech Republic. People from my country are damn good at this stuff. In video you could see for example a movie Little Otik or a short movie Food. Both of them are truly incredible. I can even confidentaly say that Czech people are real pros at this. Like there are so many wtf surreal f*cked up movies by Czech creators. We also play a lot with stop motion and it mostly looks incredible to watch. An S tier author wound be absolutely Jiří Trnka. Highly recommend the guy. He's a real puppet master ;)
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is a favorite of mine, more lite surrealism as the surreal aspects are justified logically in the plot but it still is beautiful and dreamlike
Love these vids, watch them on my break at work
Mealtime videos
This video reminded me of Mamoru Oshii's "The Red Spectacles" it was such a strange movie that I could never really describe after watching. What I thought was going to be an action thriller about a detective rescuing his comrades became a surreal labyrinth.
Sounds interesting just found a free version of it on youtube if anybody else is looking
I always enjoy your videos. I’d have to say one of my favorites is Paprika. Great to see you show it some love!
Bottom of the World (2017), Enter the Void (2009), Mulholland Drive (2001), The Others (2001), Jacobs Ladder (1999), and Lost Highway (1997)
"In the absence of any control exercised by reason..."
This is the tricky part
This is a solid YT channel, really solid. Keep doing what you're doing! I might see Being John Malkovich stoned tonight with two friends. Good idea? I really like these videos man, it's crazy how well you explain it, surrealism and desire and so forth. I really like watching these videos!
I have a problem... I just found this channel and i NEED to watch all your videos, like... They're amazing and i'm really interested in every one of them. I'll have to fake i don't have any pending chores... THIS will be my chore. Great channel!
Great video. Now I need to hear Debaser again.
My fav isn't a movie. It's twinpeaks.
Whats twin peaks ,
?
@@jesuseduardolara4110 It's TV series by David Lynch.
@@amsheel9921 I know david Lynch and Twin Peaks. but i never realized until today. that David Lynch worked on it. The explains how successfully creepy it is
@@santocuban7086 he's in it and you still didn't notice?
Thank you as always, great channel!
This instantly reminds me of when i first watched Cat's soup in like, 5th(?) Grade and felt dizzy afterwards. Now i'm looking forward for surreal movies, it's like a fun hobby yk
Cat soup was one otherworldly cartoon.i never forget it.
I assume the anime movie? Because the anime series is more of dark comedy than surreal
Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend, which is the most chaotic movie I have ever seen.
Riki-oh: The Story of Ricky: a great B action fun flick.
Dave Made A Maze: because it's just so beautiful.
Godard's 'Weekend' maybe? Some Guy Maddin stuff is pretty good
My favorite surreal film is The Exterminating Angel, no doubt about it, followed by Songs from the second floor and Eraserhead. Other favorites: Tetsuo, Tamashii no tamago, Le Age D'Or, Gozu and Viva la Muerte
For me, it has to be Reality by Quentin Dupieux. A wonderful confusion between fiction and reality.
There are also many recent french film using surrealism or convey a surreal feeling. I think of "Les Rencontres d'après minuit" by Yann Gonzales, "Les garçons sauvages" by Bertrand Mandico, "Grave" by Julia Duccorneau, "Amer" "l'étrange couleur des larmes de ton coeur" and "Laissez bronzer les cadavres" all made by Héléne Cattet and Bruno Forzani. And of course "Holy Motors" by Leo Carax. Also they could not be called a 100% "surreal movies" (some are horror film other are more like a giallo) they share the same dream like feeling.
Thank you for the titles...I only knew Grave and it was such an experience !
As we are talking about anime I think the best example would be 'The End of Evangelion', or even 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' as a whole. It uses all there religious symbols and bizarre, even scary elements to tell the story about loneliness and how the fear of being close to someone can destroy us
I think Pedro's dream in Los Olvidados is one of the best representation of a dream of all time
I liked "I'm thinking of ending things". It is uncanny and yet somehow beautiful
What a wonderful, educational, awesome video. Thank you.
‘Mother’ with Jennifer Laurence is a brilliant surreal reimagining of the bible’s Garden of Eden and the fall of man. So shocking, horrific and beautiful.
THANK YOU! I really enjoyed that movie and found it so interesting, horrific and beautifully done all at the same time. Very sublime. But it seems like a huge percentage of the internet HATED Mother and I just could never get why. I guess some people felt it was too head-on-nail and could stand to be more nuanced, but that’s kinda what I liked about it. I felt like those moments of bluntness and simplicity were what made the surreal aspects work so well. I’m so glad you and others have love for this film too!
Absolutely
The Czech adaption of Alice in Wonderland called Alice (Něco z Alenky) comes to mind
The astral planes in the show Legion and mind palace from the show Sherlock are great examples in modern day surrealism
I have seen Un Chien Andelou many times and I still shut my eyes when the eyeball scene comes on.
you should totally check out Synecdoche, New York. the most underrated movie in the world imo
I love this Channel, thx for your content
I love your videos and taste
Thanks 👍
Let's appreciate that there's a surrealist film called _Brazil._
Wonderful.
I would love to see your breakdown of the show Legion.
"Tideland" by Gilliam is a gem
Definitely surreal
Would 2001: A Space Odyssey count? I would think so because you are there along with the character unraveling the unknown and the true meaning of mans accomplishments. Not only that but the ending is very dreamlike as he starts to lose his reality.
I've associated surrealism with unsettling imagery, but I like how it the surreal can help set your mind free.... doesn't have to be violent or unsettling.
great video thanks ! give me more title to watch of surreal movies !
Paprika is my favorite, also my favorite Satoshi Kon movie
ooo, interesting
Here is the first comment crown 👑
@@Screened oh, thank you! 👑
"A Canadian wanting to..."
I couldn't place that Quebec (?) accent until you mentioned.
Yes it's Quebec 👍
Can you make a video on absurdity in film?
Videodrome reminded me both of Tetsuo and SOMA now.
hi i want to read unsilvered screen surrealism in film in pdf but i cant find it complete, can someone help me please :)
Did they really just make a video about surrealism without mentioning Jodorowsky ONCE?!
I think my favorite ones would be Pink Floyd the Wall and the two sixties shows the Twilight Zone & the Outer Limits
Another one would Be the Who movie called Tommy
“Kin Dza Dza!”, “How to be a God”, and the extremely surreal “A Field in England”
I have no idea what you said was about but I hafta say this is eneertaining
Love your videos
The Monkees Head is a really unknown surreal film. Legend has it, it was edited by a guy on LSD and I can definitely understand that now
Great video
Is 2001 considered a surrealist movie?
Certainly a detachment from a physical reality.
I'd be interested in the venn diagram of surrealism and something like the works of HP Lovecraft, where reality is so bizarre, internal logic breaks down into madness. An ant contemplating the godhead.
no, is sci-fi
Very cooI video, I adore surreal, I am currently working on my own surreal , dream like video trailers, using a combination of AI tech!
Wait haven’t I seen this before? Is this a reupload?
You forgot to mention Maya Deren. There wouldn't be David Lynch without her work.
True.
When I was a kid I saw a movie that I found pretty disturbing but I can't remember what the title was. There was this scene were the protagonist was in a restaurant and some bad guys were coming, so he picked the lobster on his plate and started assembling a gun with it. Okay, weird enough, but I gets even weirder because to finish assembling the gun he ended up pulling one of his teeth to ad it to the gun. Yikes. There was another scene were a girl connected her spine with a weird creature shaped like a videogame console through some sort of umbilical chord, like in Avatar (James cameron). Pretty weird stuff. I've tried looking for it but I haven't been able to find anything on the internet, so If anyone knows about it pls tell me xd
Could it be ExistenZ?
I believe this is existenz directed by david cronenberg
I think The sad man(animation) is also a good example.
I love movies
And surrealism
Yellow submarine / Dark city / Last days of man on earth / The visitor / Zardoz
/ House (1977) / Phase lV / Head / Wonderwall / Akira (1988)
Heavy Metal was my introduction to surrealist movies as I was a huge fan of many of the artists featured.
There are many movies that could have been better had they just gone full surrealism like the horror movie the Cell.
The original B&W "Beauty and the Beast" is a great piece of surrealist cinema 🎥.
This is an incredibly late comment, but I just had to ask: Would "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" be considered a surreal movie? I'm being sincere. The movie actually shares many qualities associated with surrealism. I just never thought of it before.
It's formalist, not surrealist
I think from now on, when I ask someone how their day was, I'm going to ask them about their daydreams too.
Is Chinatown a surreal film in a sense? The first time I saw it, I came away with a feeling of disconnection from reality, much as I did on first watching The Mirror (Tarkovsky). Sometimes (in my opinion) the most effective surreal films are those that are not obviously surreal, but their imagery comes back to you years later.
Audition, Eraserhead, Midsommar
Afro-surrealist here! Thank you for this informative video
The Color of Pomegranates, that's all I'm going to say
Nice, precise and tres maniastristia collioms amilkes. No?
I mean, there's always trying to figure out the world of "Salad Fingers"
WINGS OF DESIRE. Parts of TERRORE NELLA SPAZIO. The champagne-sea sequence in Zeman's BARON MUNCHAUSEN, and most of the rest of it. THE GAMES OF ANGELS (animated short). DAUGHTER OF HORROR. ETERNAL SUNSHINE.... ANDRO MEDIA.
hardly any of the films mentioned, in the video or the comments, are surrealist. being dreamlike or having dream scenes does not equal surrealist. nowadays "surreal" means something very different from the surrealism breton created, and the video glosses over that fact
Musicals are, by their very nature, surreal.
akira kurosawa's dreams . But I’m not sure if it’s surreal in the way described here. Honestly still trying to understand this genre tho.
I think just a few stories are surrealistic, because many of them are based on legends and myths.
Cheers for showing clips from Long Day's Journey into Night (2018). Chinese arthouse needs more love. Especially considering the CCP's frequent censorship of movies (among other things).
Sometimes you cannot read the title of a movie because the font you used is white and the movie behind it is also white (example @11:37 :))
Smashing.
The animated movie, Cat Soup it's among the best.
Impressive
Can I get a list of all the movies in this video
It's at the bottom of the description 👍
Cat Soup is a very surreal short anime film you should check out if you haven't.