settima

fantasy

Les créatures [The Creatures] (Agnès Varda, 1966)

Aug

29

Les créatures (1966)

Mylène (Catherine Deneuve) and Edgar (Michel Piccoli) Piccoli playing checkers at a small table. DPs: Willy Kurant, William Lubtchansky & Jean Orjollet.

“Everything is rotten. Decadence is everywhere. Why fight it?”

Månen är en grön ost [The Moon Is a Green Cheese] (Mai Zetterling, 1977)

Aug

21

violet

Månen är en grön ost (1977)

A woman in a violet dress and sunhat, plays a harp in the middle of a lake (via). DP: John Bulmer.

Violet in food or fashion. If in doubt, pick a title with ALL the colours of the rainbow!*

 

During their stay in the family summer house, two sisters imagine themselves as adults, once for every colour of the rainbow.

 

Il fiore delle mille e una notte [Arabian Nights] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)

Aug

13

cerulean

Il fiore delle mille e una notte (1974)

The entrance of the Shah Mosque as seen in the film. The seven colours of the tile work are reflected in the extras' costumes. DP: Giuseppe Ruzzolini.

Cerulean, or blue: a building or structure*

“Eh, i sogni a volte insegnano male, Dùnya, perché la verità intera non è mai in un solo sogno, la verità intera è in molti sogni.”

One of the many exotic locations is the مسجد شاه, [Masjed-e Shah, or Shah Mosque] in Iran with its otherworldly blue and blue-adjacent tiles.

 

Ovoce stromů rajských jíme [We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise] (Věra Chytilová, 1970)

Aug

6

orange

Ovoce stromů rajských jíme (1970)

Eva (Jitka Novákova) devouring oranges under a black umbrella (via). DP: Jaroslav Kučera.

Orange, food or fashion*

“Tell me the truth!”

– choir

An allegorical, psychedelic retelling of Genesis 3 and the Fall of Man

 

The Tempest (Derek Jarman, 1979)

Jul

28

The Tempest (1979)

Sailors dancing in a room wildly decorated with guirlandes and flowers (via). DP: Peter Middleton.

Local nightlife: people dancing or at a show*

“Don't know why There's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather Since my man and I ain't together Keeps raining all of the time

Oh, yeah Life is bad Gloom and misery everywhere Stormy weather, stormy weather And I just can get my poor self together Oh, I'm weary all of the time The time, so weary all of the time

When he went away The blues walked in and met me Oh, yeah if he stays away Old rocking chair's gonna get me All I do is pray The Lord will let me Walk in the sun once more

Oh, I can't go on, can't go on, can't go on Everything I have is gone Stormy weather, stormy weather Since my man and I, me and my daddy ain't together Keeps raining all of the time Oh, oh, keeps raining all of the time Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah raining all of the time Stormy stormy Stormy weather Yeah”

– Elisabeth Welch, Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler, 1933)

A radiant Goddess (Elisabeth Welch) performs the torch song Stormy Weather. Enchanted sailors dance.

 

Sinong lumikha ng yoyo? Sinong lumikha ng moon buggy? [Who Invented the Yoyo? Who Invented the Moon Buggy?] (Kidlat Tahimik, 1979)

Jul

20

1969

Sinong lumikha ng yoyo? Sinong lumikha ng moon buggy? (1979)

A Bavarian onion dome with the date July 20, 1969 superimposed over it. DP: Kidlat Tahimik.

“Fantastic! You are a first class dilettante!”

– Kidlat's proud parents

Ёжик в тумане [Yózhik v tumáne / Hedgehog in the Fog] (Yuri Norstein, 1975)

Jun

9

Donald Duck – 1934

Ёжик в тумане (1975)

Fireflies in the fog. DP: Aleksandr Zhukovskiy.

A [favourite] animated character for Donald Duck Day (USA)

“In the evenings, the little Hedgehog went to the Bear Cub to count stars. They would sit on the log and sip tea, gazing at the starry sky. It hung on the roof, just behind the chimney. To the right of the chimney were the Bear Cub's stars and the stars to the left were the Hedgehog's”

– opening lines

On his way to visit his friend Bear Cub, Hedgehog finds himself in a dense mistbank. Strange sounds, and even stranger creatures, omit from it. And all he wanted was have strawberry jam and tea with his friend.

Лісова пісня. Мавка [Lisova pisnya. Mavka / A Story of the Forest: Mavka] (Yuri Ilyenko, 1981)

Jun

7

National Trails Day

Лісова пісня. Мавка (1981)

Mavka (Lyudmila Efimenko) and the Spirit of the Forest (Boris Khmelnitskiy). DP: Yuri Ilyenko.

A movie that takes place in nature for National Trails Day (USA)

 

Mavka, a forest nymph, falls in love with mortal Lukash, who in his turn is punished by the Spirit of the Forest for marrying another mortal instead. Curse upon curse, Lukash is turned into a wolf, and Mavka into a weeping willow.

 

The colours, mood and impact of the four seasons on mortal and sprite alike is there, not only made visible by Ilyenko's ethereal, spiralling camera, but somewhere blooming deep inside us, observing.

Снежная королева [Snezhnaya koroleva / The Snow Queen] (Gennadiy Kazanskiy, 1967)

May

25

National Missing Children's Day

Снежная королева (1967)

Kai (Vyacheslav Tsyupa) under the Snow Queen's spell. DPs: Vadim Grammatikov & Sergei Ivanov.

Someone missing is found on National Missing Children's Day (USA)

 

Oh boy, how to do this one without a spoiler…

 

Siblings Gerda and Kai are best friends until one day, the Snow Queen's mirror shatters into a million pieces. One shard pierces Kai's eye, the other his heart, and from that moment on, all he can see is evil and his heart is cold. Now taken in by the Queen, and cold to Gerda's affection, the girl tries all to get Kai, the old Kai, back.

Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1978)

May

24

Tiara Day

Jubilee (1978)

Bod (Jenny Runacre), wears a Crown Jewel-ish affair. Amyl Nitrate (Jordan) clutches her pearls. DP: Peter Middleton.

A “member of a monarchy” for Tiara Day

“Rule Britannia, Britannia, Britannia…”

– Amyl Nitrite

Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) requests Her court occultist John Dee (Richard O'Brien) to show Her Majesty the future of Her kingdom, baroness Thatcher's rotten England, ruled over by a gang of nihilist women.