Crash

Taxidermia (2006)

“Taxidermia” is Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi’s follow up to his acclaimed “Hukkle”, and is another film obsessed with the act of eating and consumption, here taken to disgustingly literal extremes. Inspired by the short stories of Lajos Parti Nagy, the film is a non-stop assault on the senses and stomach which has invited comparisons with the works of Luis Bunuel, mainly due to the director’s use of repellently surreal imagery.

The film follows three generations of men, beginning with an unfortunate soldier called Vendel serving a cruel lieutenant at a remote military outpost in Hungary during the Second World War. Forced to live in a freezing shack, he develops an unhealthy sexual obsession for his superior’s wife and daughter which leads to tragic and revolting consequences. The result is the birth of his son Kalman, who grows up to become one of the country’s top speed eaters, entering competitions organised by the communist regime. Although hugely overweight, he finds love with an equally large lady, though has to contend for her affections with an ambitious fellow ‘athlete’. The final section follows his son Lajos, a thin wiry man who looks after his now morbidly obese father while carrying out his trade as a taxidermist and raising monstrously large cats.

Download links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 English Subtitle

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Dark Side of the Rainbow

Dark Side of the Rainbow (also known as Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd) refers to the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd music album The Dark Side of the Moon with the visual portion of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This produces moments where the film and the album appear to correspond with each other. The title of the music video-like experience comes from a combination of the album title and the film's song "Over the Rainbow". Band members and others involved in the making of the album state that any relationship between the two works of art is merely a coincidence.

In August 1995, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette published the first mainstream media article about the "synchronicity", citing alt.music.pink-floyd. Soon afterward, several fans began creating websites in which they touted the experience and tried to comprehensively catalogue the corresponding moments. A second wave of awareness began in April 1997 when Boston radio DJ George Taylor Morris discussed Dark Side of the Rainbow on the air, leading to further mainstream media articles and a segment on MTV news.

In July 2000, the cable channel Turner Classic Movies aired a version of Oz with the Dark Side album as an alternate soundtrack. Turner Entertainment has owned the rights to the film since 1986.

Fans have compiled more than one hundred moments of perceived interplay between the film and album, including further links that occur if the album is repeated through the entire film. Examples include music changes at dramatic moments, and thematic alignment such as the scarecrow dance during "Brain Damage". This synergy effect has been described as an example of synchronicity, defined by the psychologist Carl Jung as a phenomenon in which coincidental events "seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality."Detractors argue that the phenomenon is the result of the mind's tendency to think it recognizes patterns amid disorder by discarding data that do not fit. Psychologists refer to this tendency as apophenia. Under this theory, a Dark Side of the Rainbow enthusiast will focus on matching moments while ignoring the greater number of instances where the film and the album do not correspond. Another theory suggests the correspondence may have been assisted by the synaesthetic effects of narcotics taken by those who then chose to enjoy the album and the film together (that is to say, the only reason they think the two match is because they're under the influence of drugs).

Download links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or TORRENT

Brothers Quay

Opera

Street of Crocodiles (1987)

Street of Crocodiles is a 21-minute-long stop-motion animation short subject directed and produced by the Brothers Quay and released in 1986.

The Street of Crocodiles was originally a short novel written by Bruno Schulz, from a story collection published under that title in English translation. Rather than literally representing the childhood memoirs of Schulz, the animators used the story's mood and psychological undertones as inspiration for their own creation.

A man closes up a lecture hall; he reaches into a box and snips the string holding a gaunt puppet. Released, the puppet warily explores the darkened rooms about him. The desolate ambiance and haunting musical score convey a sense of isolation and futility, forcing the viewer into immediate identification with the mute protagonist as he explores a realm of mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures. As the protagonist tries to conform, or is forced into assimilation, the film slowly reveals how unfulfilling the surroundings actually are. Life and vitality are gradually stripped away to reveal the passionless cycle of existence.

Although heavily metaphorical, the piece also exemplifies the experimental and curious nature of the Quays' work. Rather than examining the potential symbolism of such props as screws, dust, string, and wind-up monkeys, many shots seem to focus on the movements and inherent characteristics of the materials. Like most of their films, the Brothers Quay employ a more musically-grounded structure in place of a straight-forward literal narrative in Street of Crocodiles.

Download links: 1 2 3

Dym (2007) Aka Smoke

Grzegorz Cisiecki’s 2007 short film DYM is a surreal, ambiguous 7 minutes of experimental and ambitious cinematography. Interpret as you will, with no dialogue to help us along, it is left to our own imagination to decipher. Flitting from one beautiful scene to the next, there is no doubt huge talent behind DYM. With a startling musical score and superb lighting, this short is a masterpiece of creativity.



The story of the person who became the captive of surrealistic madness.
Film by Grzegorz Cisiecki
Photography: Dawid Rymar
Editing: Cecylia Pacura, Grzegorz Cisiecki
Original score: Rashid Brocca, Aleksandr Poroch
Cast: Marta Szumiel, Grzegorz Golaszewski, Oriana Soika, Bartlomej Nowosielski
PWSFTViT, Poland, 2008