Surreal | The Bedlam Files

Weird and Wonderful Christmas Cinema from Around the World

A much-needed addendum to a previous essay, with an overview of weird holiday-themed films emerging from around the world

From Japan, a stop motion epic in the mold of the classic Rankin-Bass Christmas specials that’s deeply, thoroughly and profoundly weird

What follows are the type of little-known films that tend to comprise my “Look Back in Bedlam” listings, of which this is the 1982 entry

Here we’re going back to a very particular time and place: the Soviet Union, circa 1988

Exotic Dancers and the devil: a curiously appropriate pairing, especially in Europe

A surreal novella of a type that only England’s Eibonvale Press seems equipped to turn out

A self-proclaimed “happy and mystic film” from Sweden with a highly eccentric critique of imperialism (of the cultural and environmental variety)

What is there to say about 2019? A lot, albeit not on the movie screens

An impressively wrought exercise in surreal delirium that has yet to receive its proper due

In the 1980s movie-verse 1987 was something of an anomaly, being an authentically good year for film