I can’t pretend to understand what is going on in this kinetic ensemble folly. A directionless succession of hypnotisms perpetrated by a Harold Lloyd look alike which mostly seem done, not so much as to induce the subjects into various actions, but instead to freeze them into static targets to be gleefully slapped and kicked in the face and ass. There is the suggestion the instigator is performing these actions as a symposium on how to conduct hypnotisms? People come in and out of varying states of consciousness, but a consistent climate of confusion persists; the only lesson to be learned is the joy of fucking around. Could be a Portuguese satire of contemporary American comedies. DS

My understanding is that Kinugasa wanted audiences to have no context for this film: refused to use intertitles, tried to prevent a famous Benshi from narrating the film, etc. So I’ll only offer these fragments of context: the sole print was lost for 45 years … found in Kinugasa’s garden shed … rediscovery elicited reorientation of our understanding of early radical cinema … disturbing masterpiece. DS

An English tourist accompanying her naturalist father to the Madeira Islands, is startled when she discovers their peasant host bears a resemblance to the statue of a faun in her garden back home. As the trio journey into the interior of the island to observe rare birds – the young woman journeys into her own mind. The sublime landscape becomes the stage for hellish premonitions and mythic hallucinations. These culminate in murders – first in her dreams, and then in her waking life, each undone by resurrections. Gorgeous footage of waterfalls, demons twirling sparks, and unique superimposed title cards imbue this short work with qualities of a sort of haunted postcard. Probably the first fiction film shot in Madeira, and certainly a very early entry into films concerning the nascent industry of tourism, which would inextricably link England, Portugal, and the islands in the century that followed. DS

Mad scientist uses a crazy ray to freeze Paris. A few denizens remain animate. Anarchy and good times ensue. René Clair’s first film, made same year as Entr’acte: both fundamental cornerstones of whatever this genre is I’m so obsessed with. DS

An homage to the silent era: purported to be lost amateur film of real life Conrad Wilhelm Meyersick, a German engineer, made while on a business trip to Guimarães. Concerns a small village and its well-regarded priest – a man of the cloth by day, and law enforcer by night. Until one evening he succumbs to his lust for one of his parishioners, makes a deal with a witch, and unleashes a curse. Resurrections to be sure, but for whom? DS

Paul Robeson’s brilliant, devilish screen debut. The entire film is framed as a nightmare. Title says it all. DS

The 1909 version is the first serial killer narrative in the history of cinema. A true crime concerning Diogo Alves, a Galician who terrorized Lisbon from 1836 to 1840, killing seventy people. He murdered many victims by throwing them from Lisbon’s iconic Aguas Livres acqueduct – so as to make their deaths appear as suicides. The 1911 version marks one of the earliest remakes, and certainly the first Portuguese remake. Together they share a handful of tableaus and flurries of actions. The brief films read almost like exercises or crime reenactments which have been done as public humiliation in jurisdictions such as Thailand, South Korea (think Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Memories of Murder, and Mother). 1841, Alves became the penultimate criminal to be executed by the state, as Portugal became the first country (at least in the western world) to abolish the death penalty. Alves’

head was preserved and studied by scientists, in an attempt to understand the scientific origin of his evil. The head remains in a jar on display at the University of Lisbon, and is visited by tourists. DS

A story that should need no introduction, and one that I find all too relatable. My favorite cinematic version of my favorite Poe. I wonder what he would have thought. Buñuel worked as the assistant director to Epstein, as well as co-screenwriter – and it shows. DS

Early horror slapstick in which a suitor tries to earn the consent to marry from his girlfriend’s father. The father – an experimental chemist who agrees to the marriage if his next experiment works. What he means by “works” and what his general intentions are, remain vague – but seem to loosely affiliated with bringing the dead or inanimate back to life (he is introduced using a concoction to transform a painting of a duck into a real duck). For his next experiment he seeks an Egyptian mummy. The suitor, wanting to impress his would-be father-in-law, buys a sarcophagus from a store and hires a stranger to play the part of the mummy, replete with bandage wrappings and white face. Created at the dawn of cinema by an all back cast and crew, via the influential and controversial Ebony Films – this is a wild caper, with some incredible gags including the mummy actor unintentionally riding the sarcophagus down the street, and later having his unspooling bandages used as an escape rope from the chemist’s window. Increasingly frenetic and intertwined cast of characters – which includes two Egyptians trying to reclaim stolen artifacts. The print is severely damaged – but nitrate degradation creates unintentionally surreal moments that serendipitously go into full fever mode during the film’s resurrection climax. DS

🍃 😭

DS

Equal parts rapturous and desolate fairytale set an indeterminate time and place. Follows strange and solitary knight traversing great distance to reach his betrothed, the aristocratic daughter of some well landed, unseen lord. Beset at first by fatigue, and then by the seductive charms of a forest banshee and her dancing fairies – the knight loses his way, or finds a new one? First failing to acquire the intended wedding gift (he planned to gift his new wife the Holy Grail!?), and then failing to return to her in a timely fashion – he eventually encounters a faceless robed specter which is ostensibly her ghost. The shock and sorrow of which kills him as well? These impressionistic flights of spirits and emotions are made terrestrial by a protracted opening chapter populated with villagers who the knight stays with en route. Most poignantly is an early cinema milestone capturing the private drama of a young girl eating her own boogers. Inchoately inventive and erratic imagery, story and edit – swirling camera work, both POV and disembodied, superimpositions, upside down landscapes, faux-underwater miniatures, three-way split screens, four way split screens, Abel Gance innovations on a shoestring budget. All of this spun together by the then 19 year old Jorge Brum do Canto – who wrote, edited, directed, and starred in this fantasia. DS