Black Moon

In the mid-70s when this film was made there was - in the real world - a 'battle of the sexes' with militant feminism in full swing (if not an actual 'war', there was a lot of bruised feelings and anger in the air - witness works of fiction like 'Who needs men?' and 'The Woman's Room'); the student riots of the late 1960s were a fresh memory, as were images of Vietnam (and for British viewers, the latest IRA atrocities). Black Moon may not 'make sense', but it's more understandable as a dream, from beginning to end (forget the idea that any of it is meant to be set 'in the near future'), by a pubescent girl, subconsciously worried by the apparent war between the sexes and disturbed by her budding sexuality (note the juxtaposition of the idealised vision of heterosexual love, presented by music from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde first heard on the car radio, quickly followed by the shocking images of war).

As mentioned elsewhere, this is beautifully filmed, and IMHO captures beautifully the quality of dreams where one event follows another in a 'stream of consciousness' manner (yet with certain obsessive themes), and the dreamer does everything as if it were the most rational thing to do (as one does in a dream). On first viewing I suspected this film to be a rather self-indulgent exercise, but there's a strangely compelling quality about both the narrative and the beauty of the actual cinematography. Highly recommended.

It played here in Berkeley in the late 1970's at the repertory UC Theatre (now defunct of course), I saw it in Cologne in 1976, but it doesn't seem to have been picked up by any US distributor and it is not and has never been available on VHS, Laserdisc, or DVD anywhere in the world, AFAIK. And I have never seen it on cable tv (Sundance, IFC, you listening?).

A neo-surrealistic fantasy, it was promoted in newspaper ads in Germany as The Movie Where Animals Talk to People!

Weird and wonderful from beginning to end, IMHO. An old woman sitting at her kitchen table talking to a rat sitting on it. An 8 year old or so boy and girl playing in the yard and suddenly breaking into the complete love duet from Tristan & Isolde. Joe Dallesandro of Andy Warhol/Paul Morrisey movies, and lots more. I can't remember it very well at this point, it's been a quarter of a century since I saw it.

The number one film on my want list.

I must say, seeing this film was like an adult orientated verison of Alice in Wonderland; the material is dark and surreal as the music is eerie to set the mood of the film. The story revolves around a girl 'Lily' who finds herself stuck in a strange and bizarre world between fantasy and reality. Such events occurred in this film contains a talking unicorn, a teenager breast feeding an old woman (and later a unicorn?) and a naked children, frocking around the meadow as if nothing were watching them. Not since 'Eraserhead' have a seen such a bizarre, disturbing and fascinating work of art. A must see indeed for those of you who Cherish rare pieces of work like this.

Imagine, if you will, that someone had taken all the brain-damaged noodlings of softcore pornographers and decided to make a movie of them, omitting all the nudity and sex. You'd have something about as stupid as this movie. On film, it's a waste of celluloid, on DVD, it's a waste of silicon, on cable, it's a waste of bandwidth. In whatever medium it's a waste of your time. And nothing more.

This is, in short, exactly the sort of film that gives European filmmakers bad reputations, and which makes film buffs look stupid when they try to maintain that it's not a brain-dead collection of semi-arresting images. Fans of this film describe it as a metaphor, an allegory, a symbolic representation of something else. But like Burbank, there is no there there in this film. It probably has something to do with coming of age, but the "something" it has to "do" with is so blurry that it's just not worth the bother of bringing it into focus.

The film does have one redeeming feature: it makes you feel like going out and doing something useful in the world to make up for the 100 minutes you totally wasted watching it. Also, you probably didn't commit any felonies while watching it. And when not committing a felony while watching it is a film's major justification, you know it has to suck beyond belief.

Weird movie by Louis Malle, Which was filmed at Malle's own Manor, with Joe Dallesandro acting in his first (and only), non speaking role, Playing the brother of a twin sister. The film starts off with a girl, played by Cathryn Harrisson (Actor Rex Harrison's granddaughter, who was only 16), driving in her car in the dark and runs over some kind of beaver or something, later on down the road she encounters a road-block, put up by men with army suits and gas masks. The men in masks with machine guns mow down about 6 women in plain view of her. One of the guys in the masks starts approaching her car, she's dressed like a guy with a hat and her long hair tucked underneath it. The guy in the mask pulls off her hat and her long blonde hair streams out, alarmed, she suddenly pins the gas and gets away. Later she encounters men in more masks killing more women, and things get even weirder from here. Almost too weird. The movie no doubt, has a very surreal tone to it, very ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Trying to comprehend what really this movie is about is impossible. Only Louis Malle knows what king of message this movie was intended to give. And that just suits me just fine, because I find the imagery of the different scenes and various characters keep me occupied through-out the film, and interpretations are mixed with each time I watch it.