take a trip to the 1960s
The Saragossa Manuscript
Martin Scorsese saves a masterpiece of Eastern European psychedelia.
Time-bending, mind-bending and a dazzling phantasmagoria of trippy sixties counterculture, don't miss a rare season of the obscure masterpiece The Saragossa Manuscript, screening at ACMI as part of our First Look program. This fantastical film-within-a-film is a must for all movie buffs.
Set in the 18th century, The Saragossa Manuscript is a Napoleonic-era version of the Arabian Nights. Swashbuckling captain Alphonse Van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski) meanders in a trance-like labyrinthine world. Intoxicated by the poisonous allure of a skull-shaped chalice, he swoons under the spell of two buxomly sister princesses and encounters in his adventures a colourful jack-in-the-box cast of eccentric characters ranging from peasantry to royalty.
The Saragossa Manuscript will take you on a supernatural journey of absurd events swinging between fact and fantasy, dream and nightmare. A complex tapestry of intricately designed multiple narratives creates a sensual, gothic, surreal, macabre and, at times, comic classic tale. You'll feel like you've taken a sip of magic potion from Alphonse's chalice, in his own words."It's enough to drive you crazy."
Although the film has for decades been named by scores of directors as one of their favourite films, one suspects it was mainly by repute - given just how difficult it was to actually see. Screening in underground and student cinemas in a 152 minute shortened version, The Saragossa Manuscript gained a cult following in the eighties. After a number of restoration attempts (including one by Jerry Garcia in the mid nineties), the restoration of the film was made possible by the World Cinema Foundation.
Founded by Martin Scorsese in 1990 (along with Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg - phew!), the organisation is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of neglected films around the world. Last year, ACMI showed another work restored through the project in First Look - the wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch I Am Cuba.
The restoration project makes it possible to again see the original 180 minute version of the film - of which only one source remained until the World Cinema Foundation brought this extraordinary piece of Eastern Bloc cinema back to life. Arresting Cinemascope imagery elevates this eccentric cinematic vision to legendary status.
The Saragossa Manuscript is screening Thursday 30th October - Sunday 2nd November. For full screening details head here
Published Thursday, 30 October 2008
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