Post by london777 on May 10, 2018 0:39:37 GMT
In A Matter of Life and Death (1946 Powell and Pressburger), most of the second half of the film is the hero's delusion while anaesthetized during an operation. Although many of the earlier sequences have a dreamlike quality as well (e.g. how did he survive jumping out of his plane without a 'chute?)
In The Night of the Hunter (1955 Charles Laughton) the children have "realistic" nightmares, but also the long and poetic sequence of their escape south, pursued by Mitchum, is dreamlike and it is unclear whether this represents the children's dreams too.
In A Serious Man (2009), the Coen Brothers' version of the Book of Job in modern USA, it is unclear whether the final sequence is a dream or vision of the hero, or is to be taken at face value. Only while typing this have I realized how much the end of Take Shelter (2011) owes to the Coens' film.
Angel Heart (!987 Alan Parker) plays with dream sequences, so that when we think "Relax, it is only his dream" the realization that the latest horror is literally true makes it doubly awful.
Barton Fink (1991 Coen Brothers) also slips back and forth from gritty realism to nightmare. I guess the whole thing is the writer's dream or fantasy. The Coens like dream sequences. Besides "Lebowski" (mentioned above) there are actual dream sequences and dream-like actual sequences in Raising Arizona (1987).
Dead Man (1995 Jim Jarmusch) is shot in a Wild West, apparently more authentically reproduced than in most westerns, but in a surrealist manner. It can be read either as the protagonist's dream or dying "revelation" throughout, or from a certain point earlyish in the movie when he may have been killed.
Inherent Vice (2014 Paul Thomas Anderson) is also like a Coen Brothers film in that most of it is supposed to be taken literally, although filmed in a surrealist style, while it is unclear whether certain scenes are weed-induced dreams or the fantasies of unreliable narrators. (An under-rated movie IMHO).
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988 Wes Craven ) is about the drug used by Haitian witch-doctors to create zombies. Although an exploitational movie it has some good scenes and information and is well acted. Contains some nightmare sequences. Unlike The Comedians, another of my favorite movies about Haiti, it was actually filmed in Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Paperhouse (1988 Bernard Rose) is about a pubescent girl's dreams. Very moving, especially as the young actor, Elliott Spiers, who played her sick "imaginary friend", died shortly after completion. My ten-year-old daughter was fascinated by this film, a horror story for kids, but a lot more than that. Sadly, it seems to have been forgotten, apart from launching Hans Zimmer's career because he composed, at the drop of a hat as a last minute replacement, the terrific tender/creepy score. Needs a Region 1 DVD release.
