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Magical Movies

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23:51 / 10.11.01

We've had this sorta thing here before, only with books, but now I'm asking you:

What are the movies you think are either overtly or covertly magical?

[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: impulsivelad ]

00:46 / 11.11.01

No surprise to anyone but I'd have to say
The Matrix
Another is called "Dark City" and an animated classic called "Wizards"
The last one is a must see. As simple as it is, this movie never fails to tug at my core.

I've also watched some quite enlightening porn.

...going to pick up a flick
-May

00:49 / 11.11.01

'The Cell' was very Shamanic from a soul retrieval point of view.

Professor Silly

00:49 / 11.11.01

* Akira
* American Beauty
* Fight Club
* Matrix
* Ninth Gate
* Sirens

03:02 / 11.11.01

[LIST]Star Wars
Wizard of Oz
Magnolia

03:58 / 11.11.01

Eraserhead
Metropolis
Eyes Wide Shut

what about films which have a noticable effect on its audiences thoughts? Would that be considered magickal?

I'm thinking in particular of

Dr Strangelove

05:47 / 11.11.01

Mary Poppins. Seriously.

06:50 / 11.11.01

The Begotten, The Color of Pomegranates, and Holy Mountain are all films that appear to have been made by nonhuman entities to initiate shamans into a higher level of reality.

Mordant Carnival

11:00 / 11.11.01

House of Spirits.

11:24 / 11.11.01

Let's see:

Matrix
The Sixth Sense (Kardek would love to see this movie

Excalibur
Mary Poppins (very good... *laughter*)

Maybe another Disney movie, like Fantasy? I love the episode with the little centaurs and Bacco...

12:46 / 11.11.01

Ah, House of Spirits, good pick Mordant.

Another good movie that defined the spirits struggle with ego is The Last Emperor. I used this movie as a metaphor for the stripping away of illusion.

14:46 / 11.11.01

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

'We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams'

also the films of Jan Svankmajer...Alice, Faust, Conspiritors of Pleasure and his shorts...also his new one Little Otik ...all very magical and wonderful...

I'm sure David Lynchs film will pop up in this thread a lot...rightly so

14:50 / 11.11.01

quote:Originally posted by buttercup:
Mary Poppins. Seriously.

I'm so glad someone else thinks this! It's one of the single most subversive films I can think of: lots of situationism in the subtext ("Beneath the Streets, a forest," fun as a studious endeavour, the city as temple, that kind of thing. Lots of psychogeography). What a movie - I could go on for hours.

The Coen's latest rules. Had a profound effect on me when I left the cinema. It's got a meditation on quantum physics at its centre (uncertainty theory), which pushes all my buttons at the moment. The film is hyper-dense, with a hell of a lot wrapped and warped into it.

As far as magickal movies - I'm not sure I can think of any that I'd say are intrinsically magickal, but many have had an effect on me. So I can only really talk about that side of things.

Quick related aside: Has anyone seen the House on Haunted Hill? Two good friends thought there had been some disturbingly vile subliminals worked into it, and left the cinema feeling they'd been abused in some way. Any takers? I haven't seen it myself, but I'm curious...

15:34 / 11.11.01

excellent topic.

I notice the predominance of beat 'em up male power fantasies in some of the list though even if in the case of Akira for one I like the movies in question. if you take it literally you could create a delusionary reality for yourself. "fuck everyone. me me me." y'know?

for exploding/exposing consensus reality trance I think Head starring the Monkees(!) and Savages (a Merchant-Ivory production[!] which I love to promote).

Videodrome for sure, too though I cannot contextualize it really as anything othe than itself. WAX: The Discovery of Television among the Bees ditto.

maybe Heavenly Creatures as a cautionary tale! and I second The Holy Mountain you betcha.

watching the last Neon Genesis Evangelion movie with improvized electronic accompanyment having read about but not actually seen the series really did my head in as I have mentioned before.

16:51 / 11.11.01

I had an ecstatic religious experience from watching 'Hook' while coming off of some acid. It left me feeling like light was spilling out of my holes for days and days afterward. I still get a kick in the head watching it again. It may have been that the stars were right at that moment, for me, with what I was thinking about and what was going on in my life but, it damn sure was magical. The whole thing just seemed to perfectly portray something I was trying to find my own way to say, a great illustration of the benefits of remembering that you start as The Fool and need to keep that with you as you progress. Get older, but don't become an adult. Other folks have reported similar results, both on their own and at my urging.

I, personally, get a lot of mileage from westerns and movies like Mad Max that borrow heavily from the 'western tradition' (Heh. The Western Occult tradition. *cackle* Frater Leone.) They are largely very tight portrayals of the Hard Choices people have to make, and the changes they go through both to accomplish the tasks at hand and the changes they go through after doing the job. An easy-to-digest symbol set in action. 'Unforgiven' is practically about a man Invoking his former self to suit his current needs.

Fight Club is obvious, and has been mentioned, but I think deserves another mention. If you haven't seen it, please do. Just for God's sake don't interpret it literally. I've started to see that happen, and I fear Fight Club is the new "Stranger in a Strange Land".

I might think of more as I stew, but that's it for now.

17:25 / 11.11.01

jan svankmajer definitely. i think stop-motion animation is magical. the technique takes control of a tangible, three dimensional "thing" and gives it life in a completely subjective form of time.
nightmare before xmas, the final program, existenze, the adventures of baron muncheousen(sp?), fantastic planet,
brazil(!), princess mononoke, the year without a santa claus...all of these can affect and/or change your metaprogram, and good fun too watch when stoned.

17:50 / 11.11.01

Interesting subject, and it's made me think quite a bit about it.

I think most children's movies are inherently magical, and allow people to imagine extraordinary things without the adult "censor" within from clamping down ("because it's for kids"). In this regard, there are some great films out there that pretty enjoyable: "Labyrinth", "The Wizard of Oz", "Never-Ending Story", "Matilda", "The Princess Bride", the Muppets' Movies, etc. etc. The list is quite lengthy actually. Films that inspire children to maintain a sense of wonder about the world, and encourage them to dream are probably helping the future generation in a serious way.

For adults, I think there are plenty of films out there, and they range greatly in scope and theme.

I love films by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (especially "Amelie" and "City of Lost Children"), and David Lynch (in particular "Fire Walk with Me" which really did strange things to my head) for example.

Then there are films that are specifically about the occult - and two classics in this field stand out: "The Wicker Man", and "The Devil Rides Out".

More glossy films like "The Matrix", and "The Cell" are visually entertaining but will probably age a lot worse than the two gems mentioned above because of their dependence on SFX. "The Ninth Gate" isn't too bad because it's trading on the old-fashioned notions of occult films, but the whole witchcraft=satanism thread in it is unforgiveable in a movie made today.

Yeah, "House on Haunted Hill" (with Jeffery Rush) hit some buttons in me, and as a result I really liked the movie - except for the last 15 minutes where it totally devolved into the big SFX monster bash. But, it's a disturbing film in places, and definitely not for everyone. The original, black and white movie is actually very scary, and very atmospheric. I saw it over a year ago, late at night, and enjoyed having the pants scared off me in a quiet way.

Other people have mentioned other films which I've enjoyed, and don't ask me why, but the "Aliens" movies have always had a major hold on my imagination since I saw the first one when I was very young. Don't know if they are magical, but they certainly interact with my imagination!

18:23 / 11.11.01

"Other people have mentioned other films which I've enjoyed, and don't ask me why, but the "Aliens" movies have always had a major hold on my imagination since I saw the first one when I was very young. Don't know if they are magical, but they certainly interact with my imagination!"

Same here, and for a lot of folks. This franchise really clicks with a lot of people, and clicks HARD. Any ideas why that might be? The universal urge to stamp out Ooogy Stuff That Could Destroy Humanity? Awe of a scarily efficient being?

19:32 / 11.11.01

quote:Originally posted by A. Machine:
[QB]Same here, and for a lot of folks. This franchise really clicks with a lot of people, and clicks HARD. Any ideas why that might be? The universal urge to stamp out Ooogy Stuff That Could Destroy Humanity? Awe of a scarily efficient being?

I dream about Aliens, of the Giger variety, on a semi-regular basis. They are not quite the same, but very close. I've been dreaming about them since I was a kid (yes, after watching the movie).

My sense is that I'm mapping the Giger Alien image onto something I encounter in my dream work, but I don't know what.

Tryphena Absent

22:12 / 11.11.01

Erm...
An Autumn's Tale and any of the other Four seasons tales. I love Eric Rohmer films... if you can handle subtitles and want something calm and lovely I recommend them.
Hidden City - it's got Charles Dance in it, it's all about what's underneath London and if you know the city it's just fantastic.
I really love Agneszia Holland's version of the Secret Garden, it's just ace and I've got a thing for Terminator 2 but that's actually probably because I had a massive crush on John Connor when I was 12!

You know what - the goonies.

23:14 / 11.11.01

!!!!BRAZIL!!!! that movie is the world we live in

!!!!LEGEND,SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES,DUNE.the book is better with wunderfull mantras,LABTRINTH that movie just gets me right where it counts ,WINGS OF DESIRE not the crappy remake. evey movie that deals with looking at thing frome a diffrent angle

23:16 / 11.11.01

that labyrinth sorry real small keybord

11:46 / 12.11.01

Hmm. Wyrd, I just saw TWM & TDRO recently - there was a sale on at my local Evil Corporate Video Shop. Christopher Lee is the man.

On the 'people interpreting Fight Club literally thing, yes, I've heard of it happening - I once shared a drink with a student who claimed his mates had tried to start their own fight club, but stopped when they started getting bruises...Make of that what you will.

As to movies I consider magical, I once watched Velvet Goldmine on some incredibly strong weed and read some pretty funky stuff into it. I still maintain that it's not a film about gay glam rockers which uses faerie symbolism but is, in fact, a film about faeries using glam rock as a symbolic gloss...But I won't bore you with my elaborately developed thesis.

Other than that, I was watching the last Indiana Jones film quite by chance recently, and was struck by the quite gnostic opinions about the Grail espoused by Marcus and Indie's dad...

15:12 / 12.11.01

Pi (faith in chaos), without question. That movie came to me just as I was delving into and making progress in "the math of magic", infinites, sacred geometry, etc. The movie will also, I've noticed, drive anyone who isn't ready for it straight out of the room.

15:37 / 12.11.01

Oh man, I am SO late to the party here... ALL my movies have already been mentioned. (Mostly by Wyrd

)

I'll throw Barbarella out there, there's a definite Inanna/Erishkegal vibe going on...lots of various psychospiritual planes...integrating various aspects of the self.

velvetvandal: I agree with you about Velvet Goldmine. It's that bloody pin...

Mordant Carnival

15:38 / 12.11.01

Strangely, Pi didn't really do it for me. I mean, I enjoyed it an' all... but it seemed to miss an important point: that the lack of a pattern is also a pattern. If pi never throws up any repeated sequence as it winds off into eternity, that really would be a shock!

15:51 / 12.11.01

I can understand your point, Mordant, but I still got quite the kick out of it. And Pi, the #, as I see it, is the sea from which pattern emerges. Doesn't mean there isn't an inherent pattern in it, but we can't step far back enough to separate the signal from the noise.

18:50 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Wyrd:

I dream about Aliens, of the Giger variety, on a semi-regular basis. They are not quite the same, but very close. I've been dreaming about them since I was a kid (yes, after watching the movie).

My sense is that I'm mapping the Giger Alien image onto something I encounter in my dream work, but I don't know what.

The Alien: The Future has no need for you. The Future will be neither male nor female - it will be both.

Actually, in some ways, the Alien could easily be mapped onto a nightmare of the Child King, Horus (or whoever you want to put in that slot). Lots of womb/birth/rebirth imagery, lots of dual-gendered/shapeshifting imagery - assigned female value because not clearly male, the mouth on the stalk inside the mouth, that sort of thing. Even the Wound is deadly, if you want to get all Freudian on it.

20:04 / 12.11.01

Ninth Gate affected me a lot when I saw it. I actually did a pathworking ritual based on Johnny Depp's character which had interesting results ( and still does whenever I reactivate it).

I also remember this movie called Cursed which I saw on late-night TV many years ago. It was about a fallen gargoyle which contained incrypted information which someone used in genetic experiments. I don't remember the details but the whole approach was very vague and mystical. For some reason it seemed meaningful to me at the time.

And I second The Adventures of Baron Munchausen!

Mordant Carnival

20:17 / 12.11.01

Alien? Weerl, Alien is your whole vagina dentata thing, isn't it? Alien was spoze to be a sterile female, al la worker insects. Then you have the laying-eggs-in-people-while-they're-still-alive inna ichneumon wasp stylee, such that you have a female that can impregnate you, fatally, regardless of gender, and you have one of the most disturbing beasties ever invented. That's why Aliens is up there with Frankenstiens and Draculers and zombies, and everything else is just old man Cooper from the fairground who would have got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids. Q.E.D.

(Actually I just like to say "vagina dentata". It's like "virgin/whore dichotomy". Or "smock".)

09:00 / 13.11.01

Magnolia
The Garden

And Yeah, Brazil, too.

09:26 / 13.11.01

Ok a few repeats sorry .. Metropolis and M (Fritz Lang) Brazil, Until the end of the World, Bliss, Le sange d'un poete and Testament of Orpheus(Jean Cocteau)

09:57 / 13.11.01

quote:Originally posted by grant:
Actually, in some ways, the Alien could easily be mapped onto a nightmare of the Child King, Horus (or whoever you want to put in that slot). Lots of womb/birth/rebirth imagery, lots of dual-gendered/shapeshifting imagery - assigned female value because not clearly male, the mouth on the stalk inside the mouth, that sort of thing. Even the Wound is deadly, if you want to get all Freudian on it.

Heh, Grant, that's veerry interesting. It could apply, you never know.

Well, I'll give you an example of a dream from some years ago. Sorry for the thread rot.

Ok, I'm in a room that has two doors. One is in the middle of the north wall, the other is at south end of the East wall. There is a steady traffic of "Aliens" moving from the south-east door through to the north door. They are not exactly Aliens, but are close enough. There are lots of them, and they seem totally focussed on what they are doing. There are a couple of single beds along the east wall, and there is a bunch of people there, who seem aware, of the Aliens, but are keeping well out of the way. The Aliens totally ignore the people, almost as if they don't see them.

Now, one half-wit, picks up something, like a rock, and chucks it at the stream of Aliens. Immediately several of the Aliens peel off from the group and attack the humans. Much face-chomping ensues.

Now, a simple adage could apply here: "let sleeping dogs lie". Or in this case, "don't attract the attention of bigger and badder monsters unless you want to deal with the consequences". I'm afraid too many people throw the metaphorical rock into stilly waters and then are surprised when something decides to throw a rock back (or take a bite out of you).

There was more to the dream after that, but it gets too complicated to explain further.

The Sinister Haiku Bureau

09:57 / 13.11.01

As far as wyrd's aliens fixation goes, I would have gone for a Grofian interpretation myself...or maybe that's just too obvious- wasn't there an explicit connection between Giger's (gieger?(sp????) artwork and Stan Grof's perinatal matrixes theory?
I guess we're agreed that it's got *something* to do with womb's, at any rate.
For a magickal film I saw recently (last night, on video). The Game. Ego anihilation and the birth/death/rebirth cycle mapped onto modern day external reality.
Velvetvandal: (or anybody else) please elaborate on the Velvet Goldmine/faeries theory: I've only seen the film once, and although I could probably work it out for myself, it'd mean a trip down to my so-called video store. I'd like to hear yr thoughts on it...

09:57 / 13.11.01

quote:Originally posted by expressionless:

I'm so glad someone else thinks this! It's one of the single most subversive films I can think of: lots of situationism in the subtext ("Beneath the Streets, a forest," fun as a studious endeavour, the city as temple, that kind of thing. Lots of psychogeography). What a movie - I could go on for hours.

Me too! What a more potent example of sigil magick... or creative visualization even if you will: Jane and Michael Banks write a letter, describing in exact detail all the qualities they want in a nanny. This pisses their uptight dad off to no end and he tears the letter up into little pieces and tosses it into the fireplace. The kids walk away dejected and hopeless... essentially forgetting about it and letting go of the "lust of result". But of course what should happen as soon as they think it can't? Mary appears and she is exactly everything thing they wanted. What powerful little sorcerers they are! Furthermore, what a perfect example of practical magick. Those few scenes alone have provided me with countless amounts of inspiration. And the rest of the movie is full of that kinda stuff. My all time favorite.

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