This post isn’t so much about a horror film as such, but the film is certainly eerie and contains elements of the supernatural. Most importantly the film in question is interesting and well worth an article. So, what is this August movie? The Saragossa Manuscript a cult film much loved by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola among others.
The Saragossa Manuscript was released in 1965, directed by Wojciech Has and stars Zbigniew Cybulski. The film is Polish and a part of the flowering of film in that country that brought us Roman Polanski among other talents. The film was based on a novel published in 1815, The Manuscript found in Saragossa, written by a Polish aristocrat called Jan Potocki.
Compared to super hero and comics movies, or more conventional recreational activities such as snooker and https://www.partycasino.com/, the narrative in The Saragossa Manuscript is far weirder. Think Inception, Shutter Island or even Existenz… on acid. Although shot in black and white, the film is every bit as hallucinatory as those movies.
Set during the Napoleon Wars of the early 1800s, a cavalry officer walks into a deserted inn and finds a book, he opens the book and starts reading a tale about a cavalry officer who walks into an (identical looking) empty inn to find a book… Inception has three levels of dream – that, my friends, is for beginners – The Saragossa Manuscript manages seven levels of dream, recollection and story within story
This can all get rather confusing, one website dedicated to the film reckons that the film can get so mind boggling and dreamlike that viewers can find themselves falling into a different state of consciousness… namely sleep. The film was a cult hit with hippies in the sixties who used to think the film held gnostic secrets. It may or may not contain such secrets, but it is certainly complex enough and it’s also very enjoyable.
O wow, that sounds totally like something I would love!! I have heard of it, but did ‘t really know much about it. Need to see asap………