1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Films of Raul Ruiz"
1978-83
Directed by Raul Ruiz

Exiled Chilean director Raul Ruiz offers up three films that showcase his visually intense, highly metaphysical style. In Three Crowns of the Sailor (France, 1983, 117 minutes), a surreal drama based on the Chilo myth of "Caleuche," or "The Ship of the Dead," a sailor spins fantastical yarns of far-off brothels, opium dens, and exotic characters for a young boy who just committed murder. Sacha Vierny (Night and Fog) lends his beautiful black-and-white lensing to the avant-garde staple The Hypothesis of a Stolen Painting (France, 1979, 63 minutes), in which a pompous art collector guides a tour through a fantastic gallery of "living images." As the human artworks begin to smirk and fidget, a new level of spectatorship is introduced into this daring meditation on the relationship between words and images. And in The Suspended Vocation (France, 1978, 96 minutes), based on a Pierre Klossowski novel about his experiences in the seminary during the German Occupation, Ruiz uses a complex parallel narrative to offer a critical examination of the mysteries of the Catholic Church. French with optional English subtitles.  276 minutes.