This rare, surely blacklisted gem of a film is one of a very few genuine examples of early American surrealist film. This seems to be something like a monument to the 50's beat generation, and must have been classed as the work of certain "communists in Hollywood", some of whom actually did sport their own variety of communism.
Dissecting film and reading metaphor into every random detail is abhorrent, as little of that kind of thing (beyond the screenplay) is likely to be intentional on the part of the director. There is a collaboration of amazing talent, everyone creates inspired work, and the result is almost a random stream which transcends it's elements and becomes worthy of all sorts of interpretation. Like art, the viewer finds his or her own meaning in the work. However, this film is open to the interpretation of all sorts of illusory social commentary as much as any film by Bergman or Fellini. Thankfully, it has not been ruined in that way, but I would claim it easily compares to other great surrealist films. ....(spoilers)..... The gothic slumber room, "deatheticians", pet cemeteries, blasting ashes into space, selling out and paving over a full cemetery to build a convalescent home to start the whole process over again- nothing is sacred. This film presents everything antithetical to 1960's values. Maybe it was supposed to have a laughter soundtrack so everyone would know it was supposed to be funny; it was left out, and the brilliant result is that one can't discern the cynicism from the dead-pan humor. Light years ahead of it's time, it's minor theme puts modern suburban gothic wannabe's to shame. Megalomaniacs, greedists, maniacal genius' and hapless, pathetic victims. A ludicrous scenario somehow composed of all too realistic elements of American culture, combined to create quite a scathing view of jet age values, but like most great films, it ultimately goes beyond any references to reality at all, and creates it's own unique, bizarre, and now completely unpredictable world. Only god could know where this particular world was headed.
Released when the Beatles were kids and all the surrealist films ever made were from Europe and could be counted on one hand, -and during the earliest days of the Viet Nam war-, perhaps it's cynical message should not have been passed over so easily.
Dissecting film and reading metaphor into every random detail is abhorrent, as little of that kind of thing (beyond the screenplay) is likely to be intentional on the part of the director. There is a collaboration of amazing talent, everyone creates inspired work, and the result is almost a random stream which transcends it's elements and becomes worthy of all sorts of interpretation. Like art, the viewer finds his or her own meaning in the work. However, this film is open to the interpretation of all sorts of illusory social commentary as much as any film by Bergman or Fellini. Thankfully, it has not been ruined in that way, but I would claim it easily compares to other great surrealist films. ....(spoilers)..... The gothic slumber room, "deatheticians", pet cemeteries, blasting ashes into space, selling out and paving over a full cemetery to build a convalescent home to start the whole process over again- nothing is sacred. This film presents everything antithetical to 1960's values. Maybe it was supposed to have a laughter soundtrack so everyone would know it was supposed to be funny; it was left out, and the brilliant result is that one can't discern the cynicism from the dead-pan humor. Light years ahead of it's time, it's minor theme puts modern suburban gothic wannabe's to shame. Megalomaniacs, greedists, maniacal genius' and hapless, pathetic victims. A ludicrous scenario somehow composed of all too realistic elements of American culture, combined to create quite a scathing view of jet age values, but like most great films, it ultimately goes beyond any references to reality at all, and creates it's own unique, bizarre, and now completely unpredictable world. Only god could know where this particular world was headed.
Released when the Beatles were kids and all the surrealist films ever made were from Europe and could be counted on one hand, -and during the earliest days of the Viet Nam war-, perhaps it's cynical message should not have been passed over so easily.