Raoul Ruiz

  • Raoul Ruiz – Shattered Image (1998)

    1991-2000CrimeDramaRaoul RuizUSA

    Quote:
    Written adroitly by Duane Pool, “Shattered Image” has one of those stories about which it is all but impossible to say anything with any degree of certainty. It does seem clear that Parillaud’s Jessie and Baldwin’s Brian are an exceptionally attractive Seattle couple honeymooning at a posh Jamaican resort and that Jessie is deeply disturbed. She apparently has endured a rape and its trauma has been compounded by the death of her wealthy father. She has vivid dreams in which she sees herself as an ultra-cool hired assassin–and her latest assignment is to knock off none other than Brian or a man who is his twin. As for Brian, is he the solicitous husband he seems to be? Or is it the cold-blooded assassin who is real, and Jessie but a figment of her dreams?Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – L’Île aux merveilles de Manoël AKA Manuel on the Island of Wonders (1984)

    1981-1990FantasyFranceRaoul RuizTV

    Quote:
    This three part French TV serial for children (alternate versions exist as a feature, Manoel’s Destinies, and a 4 part Portuguese TV serial, Adventure in Madeira) is the favourite of many devotees of Raúl Ruiz. This is because it ties the enchantment and mystery of Lewis Carroll, Carlo Collodi and the Brothers Grimm to the filmmaker’s experiments with narrative strategies and what he calls the pentaludic model of storytelling (where characters are thrown dice-like into combinations and situations governed by the play of Chance and Destiny).Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – Nadie Dijo Nada aka Nobody Said Anything (1972)

    1971-1980ArthouseChileDramaRaoul Ruiz

    “With this film I returned to the world of Tres tristes tigres, to some people, in this case writers, who live in their own reality and believe that it is, in fact, Chile.” Raul RuizRead More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – A Closed Book (2010)

    2001-2010MysteryRaoul RuizThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Sir Paul, a distinguished author, blinded in a horrific accident, advertises for an amanuensis, an assistant to help him with his writing. He employs the amiable Jane Ryder to be his eyes as he revisits scenes from his past and works on what he intends to be his final opus. Jane appears to be ideal: attractive, intelligent, unruffled by her employer’s abrupt eccentricities. But, gradually, we come aware that Jane has another agenda. Incrementally, Sir Paul’s familiar surroundings are altered. Strange things happen around the house and he becomes increasingly dependent on his new assistant. Jane plays increasingly sadistic games until their relationship breaks down.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – L’œil qui ment AKA Dark At Noon (1993)

    1991-2000ComedyExperimentalFranceRaoul Ruiz

    After his father’s death, a Parisian medical researcher returns to a region of Portugal to deal with part of the family legacy – a prosthesis factory owned by an old family friend. He finds the factory owner and his wife “possessed” by the local Marquis and finds himself constantly accosted by all sorts of supernatural manifestations.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – La maleta (1963)

    1961-1970ArthouseRaoul RuizShort FilmSpain

    La maleta is a 1963 Chilean short film directed by Raúl Ruiz. It was Ruiz’s first film as a director.
    This Expressionist short film was presumed lost for many years. When the rough footage was found in 2008, Ruiz agreed to edit it again. The new version was premiered at the Valdivia Film Festival 2008.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – La vocation suspendue AKA The Suspended Vocation (1978)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaFranceRaoul Ruiz

    “Ostensibly a faithful adaptation of Pierre Klossowski’s autobiographical novel about the struggle between rival doctrinal factions with the Catholic Church, THE SUSPENDED VOCATION illustrates Ruiz’s belief that institutions, in order to survive, must treat all forms of dissidence as treason. In 1942, a film entitled The Suspended Vocation was begun by a group of monks; running out of money, they abandoned the project. Twenty years later, a religious order hires a professional director to again take up this film project; the director, having examined the earlier footage, concludes that it is unusable. He decides to use professional actors, at which point the church authorities, fearful of the escalating costs, withdraw their support. Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – L’hypothèse du tableau volé AKA The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978)

    1971-1980ArthouseFranceRaoul Ruiz

    Two narrators, one seen and one unseen, discuss possible connections between a series of paintings. The on-screen narrator walks through three-dimensional reproductions of each painting, featuring real people, sometimes moving, in an effort to explain the series’ significance.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – L’éveillé du pont de l’Alma AKA The Insomniac on the Bridge (1985)

    1981-1990ArthouseFranceRaoul Ruiz

    Quote:
    A peeping-tom academic (Michael Lonsdale) and a hunchbacked prizefighter (Jean-Bernard Guillard) find nocturnal rapprochement in their shared inability to sleep. Bottomless philosophical discussions take the men further afield of reality, and they eventually decide to rape a pregnant woman named Violette (Olimpia Carlisi), who then throws herself into the Seine—only to return time and again in new, horrifying forms, including the spectral visage of her son (Ruiz’s child alter ego Melvil Poupaud). One of the director’s most confrontational visions, The Insomniac on the Bridge is a barbed avant-garde meditation on trauma, rationalization, and delirium—an underside that Ruiz, as always, reminds us is clinging to the crust of day-to-day reality.Read More »

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