42 — Wednesday, September 23, 1992 - North Shore News

I Don'T KNOW MUCH
ABOUT FOOTBALL /

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CAN I GET You
SOMETHING

PHIPPS® by Jeseph Fa

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“The bruise on my neck? They forgot to
sharpen the guillotine.”

PET CORNER

DONATE: ‘‘Peanuts,” a nice little Maitese/poodle (in
photo). Phone Doris Orr at 987-9015. Also waiting ‘for a
home: husky, corgi, orange tabby, calico and others. Phone
987-9015 or 988-5643.

PETS LTD needs goed tomes for 12-month-o!4 purebred
boxer; 442-mouth-old golden lab X; mature’ purebred
miniature poodle; three-year-old purebred Si. Bernard; sev-
eral medium-sized dogs; beautiful white and pastel manx cats.
Also Littzas. Call 988-7461.

PORTRAIT OF the artist as a young surrealist: Seivador. Dall.
photographed by Luis Bunuel in 1928. Dali found the title for Us
Chien Andalou in a hook of poems Bunuel had written. . a

Projected provocations.

, From page 36

Those interested in the history
and evolution both of surrealism
as an art movement and of cinema
as an artform, which some con-
tend celebrates its 100th anniver-
sary this year, will already have
braved the rigors of Man Ray’s
cinema-concrete experiments and
the conceits of Hans Richter’s
Dreams That Money Can Buy to
reap the bounty cf seeing some of
the finest or rarest creations in the
history of moving pictures.

Richter’s uneven collaboration
notwithstanding, it is precisely
those films that embody the
amorphous fears and disturbing
interiors conjured in’our darkest

dreams that most succeed in mov- .

ing us.

Of particular interest are the
classic 1928 Dali-Bunuel col-
laboration, Un Chien Andalou and
Maya Deren’s mesmerizing tour
de force, MesheS in the Afternoon.

Equally haunting is The Brothers
Quay 1991 production, The Comb
{From the Museums of Sleep), a
17-minute excursion into noctur-
nal metaphor that juxtaposes
langucrously quirky live-action
with omimously enigmatic anima-
tion. ‘

The value of all these short films
is that in their tight economy and
obsessive imagery they unleash
with a savage and irrevocable
power the primal spectres eternal-
ly lurking within the dark corridors
of the collective subconscious.

Though humor is seldom absent
in surrealist films, it is typically
black and disquieting.

In an attempt to lighten the suf-
focating character of the works
central to this series, its coor-
dinators have interspersed films
only peripherally related to the
movement.

Rene Clair’s magical Dadaist
precursor to surrealist film, En-

64 Today the rules ‘are
ambiguous... the:
oracles broadcast a’

~ babble of 2
contradictions. 99...
. -Maya Deren, 1961"
“Wwacte, features the likes of Erik ©
Satie and Marcel Duchamp in its “*:
absurdist tribute to the slapstick of =:
Mack Sennet. a
The Buster Keaton silent classic,

Sherlock Junior, projects the
film-projectionist protagonist into a:

_ surreal dream world where the

common laws of everyday physi-"”.
cal reality are subordinated to the,
elliptical “illogic” of film editing ~~
practice. res

Surrealism clearly plays second | -*
fiddie to the warmth and humanity ~
in Jean Vigo’s recently oe
reconstructed 1934 masterpiece,’ ~
L‘Atalante. ; cee

And The Brothers’ Quay scher-
zophrenic production, The Cabi-”
net of Jan Svankmajer is a joyful -
celebration of stop-action anima-
tion that even a child of the most -
delicate sensibility would not fail
to be enchanted by.  ~ :

Without question, for those in-. ,
terested in observing surrealism in: —
its formative and unadulterated =~
state these films are indispensable
documents that set standards for
comparison.

For those who seriously believe
cinema to be the definitive artform
of the 20th century (rather than a
mere source of cheap weekly
entertainment), if you’re still un-
aware of the existence of Pacific
Cinematheque in Vancouver, then.
the wharf is sinking and you've
missed the boat.