10th December 2008

Question: In what ways do surrealist and fantasy films challenge our usual expectations of conventual narrative cinema?

The different aspects of surrealist and fantasy films are very different to the normal narrative of cinema. Surrealism explores the abstract structure of film, a surrealist film encourages the audience to explore the social and moral questions to which they question themselves when watching because there can be no moral or social reasoning behind the surrealist shots. 

The fantasy genre explores the world of myths and legends and creates a world in which is like a dream. The audience is drawn in and is encouraged to become apart of the world with the characters. 

There are clearly different aspects to the surrealism genre and the fantasy genre. In the fantasy genre, it explores the dream element and creates a world in which not all is as it seems but it can be explained. With the surrealist genre it also explores the dream element but enters in more with great depth and it is very hard to define the reality elements to the dream elements. 

With conventual Cinema there is a plot that is followed throughout the film, the characters types that are constant, however surrealism and fantasy challenge this by creating aspects in there genres that don’t have to apply to the normal conventions and can explore the conventions by adapting them to create there own style. With surrealist and fantasy films there is an expectation from the audience to explore the unknown of cinema. 

Examples of these two genres being used is in Jan Svankmajer Alice and Disney’s version Alice in wonderland. Jan Svankmajer created a world in which things were not as it seemed In part the young girl encounters a taxidermist rabbit who she follows through this very disturbing and decaying world. That appears to be created from the young girls disturbed mind. 

In the fantasy version of Alice in wonderland created by disney, The story is just as strange but in the fantasy genre you can find logic within its conventions. The disney version of Alice in wonderland is easy to watch because of all the strange and wonderful bright colours used to draw the attention of young children and in turn is a children’s classic.