Ten films, surreal and/or absurd (or with surreal and/or absurd elements), in no particular order, followed by trailers, clips, or the films in their entirety where available:
- Trys dienos / Three Days (Sharunas Bartas, Lithuania, 1991) Heavy-handed symbolism and perhaps only five lines of dialogue.
- Den’en ni Shisu / Death in the Country (Terayama Shuji, Japan, 1974) A cinematic parallel for butoh: dark, myserious, caustic, sad.
- Jol / The Road (Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan, 2001) A film by a director who knows better than to show too much.
- Careful (Guy Maddin, Canada, 1992) Maddin created his own style, a pastiche. A comedy of despair.
- Ai no Korida / In the Realm of the Senses (Oshima Nagisa, Japan, 1976) Those with some background on the topic will know how the story ends. For the credits to roll so soon afterward is very bold – to say the least.
- Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1979) There are many stories about escaping to the outside. Stalker is about escaping to the inside.
- Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie / Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, France, 1972) This film wants to turn the world upside down.
- Kawa no Nagare wa Baiorin no Oto (Sasaki Shoichiro, Japan, 1981) A cinematic rule: if there’s a gun it has to shoot. This film breaks that rule. Click here for full review and film.
- Keshtzarhaye sepid / The White Meadows (Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran, 2009) Allegorical and magic.
- Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, 2008) A sailor returns home. Nobody wants him back.
Patrik Sampler 