Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

I love magical realism in film and literature and in art. A compelling sense of the transcendental and the sublime shining out of the mundane and the every day.

https://collider.com/best-magical-realis...KWwEVS0kFA

"Magical realism is a tricky genre to define, as it often breeds a setting that lands somewhere in between our reality and a surreal fantasy. The genre, which became wildly popular in the 20th century due to its prevalence in Latin American literature, has had a steady rise in cinema around the world. In the genre, fantastical situations often occur in realistic settings, resulting in mythical occurrences that the protagonist must either battle or reckon with. However, each of the following films, from the minds of filmmakers ranging from Spike Jonze to Alejandro G. Iñárritu, go beyond these parameters; they use magical realism to create metaphors for the human condition in unique ways, and thus heighten their stories far more than if they had stuck to a standard “realistic” world..."

(Dec 1, 2023 08:44 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]I love magical realism in film and literature and in art. A compelling sense of the transcendental and the sublime shining out of the mundane and the every day.

https://collider.com/best-magical-realis...KWwEVS0kFA

"Magical realism is a tricky genre to define, as it often breeds a setting that lands somewhere in between our reality and a surreal fantasy. The genre, which became wildly popular in the 20th century due to its prevalence in Latin American literature, has had a steady rise in cinema around the world. In the genre, fantastical situations often occur in realistic settings, resulting in mythical occurrences that the protagonist must either battle or reckon with. However, each of the following films, from the minds of filmmakers ranging from Spike Jonze to Alejandro G. Iñárritu, go beyond these parameters; they use magical realism to create metaphors for the human condition in unique ways, and thus heighten their stories far more than if they had stuck to a standard “realistic” world..."

Big Fish (2003) [...] Much of the magical realism throughout the film is grounded in Will Bloom’s difficulty to distinguish fantasy and reality. Burton knows exactly how to blend the two together to create a world that is neither entirely realistic nor entirely made up.

Tim Burton is who I almost felt like declaring Yorgos Lanthimos a successor to.

I especially like a strict dichotomy where the augmented reality remains wholly psychological. Where the influences of a parallel world never literally enter or affect the outer environment except through the actions of the individual or individuals possessed by it. The latter uncertainty is what makes such different from, say, an ordinary psychological thriller -- where YOU KNOW the weird stuff is resulting purely from the "ordinary" type imagination of the applicable characters.

In Saint Maud, for instance, everything can be explained by Maud simply gradually going mad and hallucinating. Yet at the same time, there's a nagging sense that some entity or realm might really be manipulating her with the feelings and manifestations only she experiences.

There are other films that have done such better (especially without it being in some pathological horror context), but their titles escape me. I didn't really apprehend the philosophical value of what they were doing when I first saw them, where you can have something transmundane at work, but it still being compatible with the natural operations of the outer world because it was only intruding subjectively and via the biologically explainable behavior of those it affected.