. . . or is it the other way around? I wonder which Borges’ stories these movies remind you of? There are six in all, so click on the “continue reading” at the bottom to, well, to continue reading, but really to continue viewing.
Pan’s Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro
The Science of Sleep, written and directed by Michel Gondry 
Donnie Darko, written and directed by Richard Kelly 
Dead Man, by Jim Jarmusch
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s funny, we were talking about this in class and I thought to myself, “I wonder if he’s heard of The Fall,” and there it is…The Fountain was decent though, I didn’t think it was as good as Requiem but it kept me interested.
“Special Effects from Real World”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/movies/11kehr.html?ex=1368676800&en=7151bdcb3f8e09cb&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
I really like what he says in that article: “It had to be made by somebody at a mad junction in his life.” That sounds promising…but as far as special effects go, I remember reading something about how Darren Aronofsky tried to use as few as possible; the process behind making a lot of those sequences was interesting to look into though.
This whole contamination of reality by dreams idea actually reminds me of a Japanese animated movie called Paprika which takes that concept very literally. The background of the story involves scientists creating a device that allows psychologists to “enter” their patient’s dreams to assist in counseling them, but the device is stolen and eventually used for borderline terrorism. At that point, dreams literally begin to enter reality and vice versa, all illustrated with a lot of very visually intense sequences. It was a great (albeit fairly confusing) movie but its worth seeing simply for that really vivid animation…
The Fountain was sooooo weird. Too weird.
Donnie Darko is a classic. But also really weird.
Another movie that’s pretty good is What Dreams May Come. It sort of plays with self-perception and what not.
Is The Fall out in theaters/on DVD? It looks really good.
I enjoyed the Fountain a lot, but I gave Aronofsky the benefit of the doubt, since his original concepts had to be toned a lot down due to huge financing problems and having his two main actors back out of the project, one of which was Brad Pitt. I think the other was Cate Blanchett. But I agree with Kamran–it doesn’t get any better than Requiem (Megan recently wrote a good review on the book http://dimsummelon.vox.com/library/post/requiem-for-a-dream.html). More people need to see Donnie Darko. It flew a bit under the radar, although if we did not have rated R restrictions, I would add this film to my curriculum in a heartbeat as a bridge between Catcher and Slaughterhouse-Five–much like Jandek was intended to be a bridge between Eliot and Plath. Think about it . . .
Yeah Donnie Darko would be a great conclusion to Catcher and a great intro to S-5 because of the whole teen angst thing and then the time thing.
WHEN DOES THE FALL COME OUT? Gah, I’ve been looking everywhere to try and find it, and I’ve obtained conflicting stuff. Is it at the Tower?