This allegorical film by Robert Downey finds humans all playing the role of animals in cages as they wait to be gassed. Flashbacks are used to tell the character’s fantasies outside the cage.
Category: Fantasy
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An elderly couple go about their routine of cleaning their gabbeh (a intricately-designed rug), while bickering gently with each other. Magically, a young woman appears, helping the two clean the rug. This young woman belongs to the clan whose history is depicted in the design of the gabbeh, and the rug recounts the story of the courtship of the young woman by a stranger from the clan.
Léon, a humble civil servant, has the unusual ability to walk through walls, however thick they are. One day, he falls madly in love with a charming hotel thief by the name of Suzan. In order to impress her he poses as Garou-Garou, a dangerous gangster. Mistaken for him, he is arrested and sent to jail but he, of course, leaves his cell (and comes back to it) just as he likes, infuriating the prison warden. But, despite this wonderful gift, he remains shy in the presence of Suzan.
Nazareno Cruz is the seventh son of a couple living in a high mountain village. According to a myth, a seventh son will become a wolf on nights of the full moon. Everyone in the village is relieved when this doesn’t happen. The boy grows up and falls in love with a beautiful girl, Griselda. When he’s 20 years old, he is visited by the Devil, who offers him the wealth of the world if he will turn his back on his love for Griselda, and if he fails to do this, he will become a wolf.
This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar.