Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’ Is a Ghost Story and Epitaph for the Covid Shutdown
Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence becomes a way to acknowledge the surrealism that has always pulsated just beneath the surface of American life.
surrealism
Filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell’s Everyday Surrealism
Three Alexandre Rockwell films, now on OVID.tv, depict everyday Surrealism and Expressionism quite unlike the usual dingy kitchen-sink realism about lost souls.
Meet Peter Saul, the Bad Boy of American Art
Peter Saul's work is loud, vulgar, and outrageously offensive. It's perfectly tuned to America's violent culture from the '60s to life in the times of the Trump administration.
Queer Love and Art in the Time of Nazis: ‘Never Anyone But You’
Never Anyone But You is an inspiring tale of surrealists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, who defied homophobia, Nazis, and gender norms while pushing the boundaries of art and love.
Short Stories: Animals, Part II
The selected stories this month have a touch or more of surrealism and their writers — Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Sarah Hall, Robert Olen Butler, Beth Goder, and Jackie Kay — explore the humanity of our species and our relationships with other living species.
In Two Minds: Robert Altman’s ‘Images’ Essays the Terrors of Schizophrenia
Altman’s Images is a complex, haunting, and always disturbing film about the slow realization that one’s sanity is at stake.
Beneath Buñuel: On ‘A Woman without Love’
Where, in A Woman without Love is the imagination, wit, and brilliance one expects of Buñuel?
The Cabin Fever Goes Cult With “The Brown Bunny” (premiere)
Mysterious Los Angeles outfit the Cabin Fever draws inspiration from Heaven's Gate and surrealistic film on "The Brown Bunny".
Jennifer Caloyeras Gets Unruly In Her New Short Story Collection
Intimacy with animals, babysitting plastic dolls, and running into your dad at a furry cuddle party are just a few of the details in this off-the-chain collection of stories, Unruly Creatures.
Going Back to Things Unknown with ‘The Outer Limits’
The Outer Limits is a mix of science fiction, nightmares, and surrealism -- the very things that make life worth living even though they scare the bejeebers out of us.
On Satyajit Ray’s Make Believe World in The Hero
The Hero has deliciously surreal nightmares of obvious symbolism -- skeletons under piles of money, a nightclub in a spectral forest -- and these seem to give Satyajit Ray and Subrata Mitra special chiaroscuro joy.
Criterion’s ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’ Is a Semiotic Feast
Sheryl Lee's iconic performance as Laura Palmer evokes epic sorrow and haunting tragedy.