Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on March 30, 2007 at 10:42:16

Scorsese. Reputedly, Jerry Garcia's favorite film and its easy to see why: it's as convoluted and dizzying as one of Jerry's solos!
This superb Polish film, helmed by Wojciech Has, is a truly inimitable and original work: take M. C. Escher's works, Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, 1001 Nights, Jewish mysticism, and several other influences, throw them into a blender and...nah, it still wouldn't add up.
An officer is dazed by an artillery barrage and seeks sheter within a bombed out house where he notices a book. He begins to read it...and suddenly we are immersed in the tale of an officer several hundred years earlier who is crossing the Pyrenees to his ancestral home in Spain. He suffers a mishap soon finds himself captivated by two Muslim sisters who may or may not be real and who may or may not be a temptation to determine the fate of his soul.
But this is only one of an uncountable number of stories which interweave. To make matters more interesting, the cinematography also seems to circle, ascend, and return, hence my allusion to Escher.
The film score is astonishing, full credit to Penderecki.
I have been very fortunate lately: yes, this is one of the best comic films I've ever seen. It makes some demands on the viewer but, even if you just relax and go along for the mind-bending ride, you'll have a great time.
One bonus: the number of beautiful and seductive women in this film is unprecedented.