Avante-garde flicks: Recommendations plz.

If you're looking for something off-the-wall along the lines of "Eraserhead," try "Tetsuo (The Iron Man)," and "Begotten."

Here's a link on one of my favorite kurasawa films, fairly quiet. I also liked Dodeskaden and many others of his.

Dunno about this link, I'd try a2k's link to amazon on the home page first, but I had trouble remembering the name and found it here -
http://www.artfilmcollection.com/product.html?product_id=3572

I have no idea if kurasawa is considered avant garde or post gone, but he's good.

I've a bunch of favorites you might like, will post sometime later.

"L'Aventura"
"Woman in the Dunes"
"Orphee"
"Eye of the Poet"

Just how artsy do you mean?

I like the work of Jon Jost... that is, I saw Nas Correntes de Luz da Ria Formosa (1999) and London Brief (1997).

But eh - yeah, its more like videoart: just moving images, impressions (the two are very different from each other, too).

A little (if not all that much) less abstract are the movies of Aleksandr Sokurov, probably the most famous living Russian avant-garde director: there's actors, and sparse dialogue. I saw The Second Circle (1990), a bleak portrait of a son who has to bury his dead father and Mother and Son (1997), a mesmerisingly beautiful, painted-looking dream sequence of a movie that is somehow (tho not immediately understandably) about a son's relationship to his mother.

Warning: very, very slow. You have to kinda just glide into a sub-consciousness.

His most feted work, however, and probably the best to begin with, is Russian Ark (2002). A tour de force with the tagline "2000 Actors. 300 years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot." I didnt see it myself (yet), but I heard its great.

Ah, yes, "Russian Ark." Too much to absorb in one viewing and, of course, not to everyone's taste as you actually have to concentrate on what is happening on the screen. For most of the American movie watching public who seem to have ADD when it comes to films, it'll bore the hell out of them. It's very rewarding to those that appreciate it and I came away understanding Russian culture in more depth than I ever had before.

I didn't like Russian Ark, nor do I have ADD.

If you are looking for good experimental films, there are a lot more out there that do a better job than Russian Ark, IMO.

Like what?

thanks all!

I'm watching and noting.

Oh boy... I'm trying to think of some that I really liked.

An older one that is a bit more mainstream now is [URL=Memento]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/[/URL]

A more recent one is [URL=The Machinist]http://www.themachinistthemovie.com/[/URL]

I can't remember the name of it, but there was a Japanese film that was about what happens after you die. The premise was that once you die, you go to this place where they make a movie out of your favorite memory from your life. Once the movie is complete and you watch it, you are transported into that memory and that is how you spend eternity. The movie explored different people and what memory they choose and how they come to that decision. It was really good.

Found it:

After Life

Book Mark

After Life. One of my all-time favourite films.

Director also made a beautiful film before that moved me to tears - equally gentle and subtle: Maboroshi no hikari. About a woman whose husband has committed suicide, and she very tentatively feels her way around starting over, starting again, in almost meditative silence, by the sea.

But yeah, this is why I was asking Flush what she meant with experimental or arty. Because After Life or Memento, I would never have called avant-garde.

I mean, they're regular films. Sure, a bit quirky, not yer mainstream Hollywood fare. But fairly traditional in design, in narrative, acting, the way they're shot: the idea of a movie like After Life may be inventive, but the movie is otherwise not really experimental in any way, is it?

So thats what I thought, that ours may be a terminological crossmatch more than anything else.

What is called "art house cinema" is basically anything your multiplex cinema wont offer - basically everything thats not Hollywood, including French, Chinese or Latin-American films that are really quite traditional in their own way.

Avant-garde makes me think more like, it has to break the conventions, be about art rather than entertainment (in as far as good art isn't also entertainment). Like Tarkovsky was, or Bela Tarr is, or way back when Eisenstein, or Bunuels initial cinematographic experiments [ Oops - I meant Cocteau not Bunuel, I realise reading Lightwizard's response below ].

Sokurov's work definitely is experimental. Mother and Son for example is shot with a kind of lense or lense use that no other movie before used. Thats where it gets this painting-like texture from, like you're watching moving paintings. Totally outside the box.

But yes, thats definitely not for everyone. I wouldnt spontaneously take someone there, except to perhaps Russian Ark.

Just saw "Russian Ark" on hi def INHD and the experimental aspect of the film is its best asset. It provokes and puzzles and definitely not with the traditional narrative of mainstream films. "Memento" and "After Life" are both fine films and both add some new ingredients to the mix that has roots in Hitchcock and Bunuel.

Cocteau's "The Eye of the Poet" is perhaps the most experimental film I've ever seen. It's steeped in surrealism and rather difficult to watch, especially the penetrated eye sequence.

I really liked John Wayne in "The Shootist" would that be avant-garde?

I really appreciate all the recommendations; whether they be what is strictly considered avante-garde or simply 'cinemateque/ art house films'.
Anything which is not traditionally advertised and less well known; though my favorites are cutting-edge experimental pieces.

After Life. I recall that film. It was good. I enjoyed it.

Lots here I have never heard of nor seen. I will definetly check them out. BTW: I love Russian history ...and...the movie 'shooters' sounds like fun:)

Here are a few I've seen and liked;
American Astronaut
The Saddest Music in the World (and just about anything else directed by Guy Madden)
Little Otik
Divine Intervention
Songs from The Second Floor
Tuvalu
Of Freaks and Men
anything directed by the Brothers Quay
that's all that I can think of at the moment, but
I'll list more later

Leave it to thiefoflight to come up with the most comprehensive list, be it rather short.

I saw this on DVD with a friend who is a documentary producer. I loved it. She not only did not like but was even contemptuous of it and a bit angry at me for liking it. What was I missing?

It's almost a "happening," not a documentary. I could see why the documentary producer would not get it. It's lyrical and nuanced and the drama is in the imagery. It's the Hermitage, stupid.