This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry.
Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (The Saragossa Manuscript)
I didn't realize this beforehand, but this movie is essentially a gimmick movie in my opinion. I don't know too much about the source material, and maybe if I did I would have found this movie a lot more impressive.
The gimmick is something that I feel like could have been potentially more interesting to me, but just seemed a bit wasted and absurd. Basically what ends up happening is that we get a story inside of a story inside of a story, etc. The movie introduces a story with characters, and at one point one of the characters will tell a story. The movie then cuts to that story and at some point one of the characters in that story will start telling a story. Then the movie cuts to that story. Sometimes the movie will go back to the people telling the story and sometimes it will continue to delve into more and more layers of stories within stories. I remember counting at one time how many layers deep the story went. I think it was maybe a dozen at one point.
I know this had become sort of a cult classic in the US in subsequent years. Maybe a lot of drug taking hippies loved the story within a story type of thing. There are some trippy and fantasy elements.
I can't say the movie wasn't enjoyable, but it does get a bit long. I guess that's the point. It's supposed to be epic.
Rating: 7/10