Interesteg What makes it different from others?

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

zetes A bizarre work of surrealist art. I don't know if I've just outgrown this kind of thing or if this one in particular is just sophomoric, but I didn't like it all that much. I didn't exactly hate it either. It surely has its share of outrageous and entertaining images and gags, but it feels like director Arrabal (best known for writing Jodorowsky's debut film, Fando and Lis) is doing little besides trying to shock the audience. So we get all kinds of penis torture, cannibalism, and poo play, and it gets tiresome long before the film is over. What little story there is has on-the-lam murderer George Shannon running into holy fool dwarf (Hachemi Marzouk) in the desert. The dwarf shows him how he lives in the desert, so Shannon later repays him by bringing him back to Paris. The dwarf, an outcast, continuously points out how silly the modern world is. I rented the film because it was the only one with Emmanuelle Riva that Netflix carried that I hadn't already seen. In particular, the film wasn't worth seeing as a memorial to the recently deceased actress. She plays Shannon's mother and murder victim. She barely says a word and catches some guy's ejaculate. Not her proudest moment.

Coventry This is the type of cinematic oddity that you don't know what to write about. You can stop talking about it rather quickly, or you can discuss the deeper meaning and various types of symbolism for hours and hours. One thing's for certain: "I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse" is one of the weirdest movies ever made, with a level of bizarre that is practically on par with Alejandro Jodorowsky's "El Topo", Andrzej Zulawski's "Possession", David Lynch's "Eraserhead" and Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo – the Iron Man". The story is pretty much impossible to describe, let along summarize, but I'll try anyway. Aden Rey is a 30-something man, with a serious Oedipus trauma, on the run for the police. He flees into the desert where he makes an acquaintance with a lonely midget prophet named Marvel. This little guy sort of represents Jesus Christ and Mother Earth, because he can turn day into night like he's using a light switch and floats through the air on cherubic music. Aden falls in love with Marvel's purity and brings him back to civilization. Marvel is very curious to find out about our supposedly civil lifestyles, but the pollution, overpopulation, aggression, barbarity and exploitative nature of our society also makes him very miserable. They even try to make Marvel an act in a traveling circus because he's so cheerful and naive. And whilst Marvel slowly becomes "contaminated" by our cruel world, Aden gradually finds redemption. "I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse" is a mysterious and unfathomable metaphor on the deterioration of our society. The symbolism, although sometimes very far-fetched and grotesque, is brilliant and writer/director Fernando Arrabal obviously doesn't know any taboos. The imagery in his film is shocking, explicit, confronting, perverted, nauseating and cynical. There's footage of child executions, cannibalism, religious blasphemy (Jesus Christ statues coming to life etc), fascism and copious perverted sexual images (including fellatio, feces-fetish and loads of homosexual innuendo). The music is fantastic, the acting performances perplexing and the use of scenery is staggering. This film is simultaneously fascinating and hypnotizing to stare at, but you simply can't comprehend everything that you see. Probably not even after a dozen of viewings. Don't even think you've seen weird before you've seen "I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse". Personally, I thought I had seen my share of weird stuff already, but that was before I witnessed the sight of a midget sticking a flower inside a hermaphrodite's posterior and licking off the feces of the stem.

Rapeman In this, the third entry in Arrabal's surrealist trilogy, he steers away from the socio-political aspects that were so dominant in his previous two films, and focuses more on satirizing the modern world, along with his habitual penchant for the degradation of all things religious and themes of incest.The basic plot outline is as follows: Aden Rey is on the run from the police after instigating the death of his mother. He eventually finds himself in the desert where he meets a curious dwarf who can communicate with and control nature. In the desert Aden gets in touch with his inner-mystic with the help of Marvel the dwarf. After hanging out with goats and camels in the desert and ultimately becoming obsessed with Marvel, Aden decides to bring him back to civilisation and show him the world.Marvel is some kind of messianic figure. He has lived for 10,000 years and can turn night into day, make blind people see and command bees and goats to do his bidding. When the pair return to Paris (along with Marvel's goat, Therese) Aden introduces Marvel to women, tea, fancy apartments and cigars, all of which he finds incomprehensible and hilarious - regarding an old man puffing on a cigar: "He is like an infant suckling at the breast!".At one point during the film Marvel is tricked into joining the circus where his act consists of dancing to rock 'n' roll while the crowd points and laughs, but instead of feeling humiliated he enjoys himself to no end. Halfway through his act he climbs into the lion cage and plays with the beast, then innocently frees it into the audience.Throughout their adventures Aden suffers from constant flashbacks of his childhood, which reveals his mother to be a domineering, abusive woman who allowed him no contact with the outside world and with whom he was unhealthily in love with. He visits her home and dresses in her lingerie, then, in a nightmarish sequence, messily gives birth to a skull.Unlike Arrabal's two earlier features I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse is not set during the Spanish Civil War but in Paris in the early 70s, so modernism is the subject of constant parody. We frequently see gasmasked people having sex and involved in bizarre rituals. Marvel's running commentary on the absurdity and pointlessness of things is more often than not on point.As is to be expected all of Arrabal's grotesque imagery is present, from penis mutilation to some repulsive cannibalism at the end, Arrabal never fails to disgust with his particular brand of surrealism.

Rumi Sobek The late 60's/early 70's were a time of experimentation for most filmmakers. In fact filmmakers got away with things back then that few would be able to get away with now. Arrabal and his first two features, VIVA LA MUERTE and this, are no exceptions.One thing you still can't do without scandal is full frontal male nudity - especially of children. The scene where the little naked boy is gunned down by a firing squad of an Army of Christians could be reinterpreted today as a metaphor for how children always get caught in the crossfire when religions declare war on one another. The nudity symbolizes innocence. The 10 second scene is in no way pornographic but try doing that today and you will be shut down before you can call action.One scene predate's THE CRYING GAME by 20 years. It's too good to give away. The character of Marvel would be seen now as a Arab stereotype for sheer ignorance of all things western. Political correctness aside, the character is too funny and likable to hate.Cannibalism, still a taboo topic, is treated by Arrabal here as a mere plot device. No wonder this movie had censorship problems, which Arrabal addresses in the DVD interview segment. My only regret is that he didn't include scene by scene audio commentary as Jodorowsky did for DVD of FANDO & LIS -which is based on the Arrabal play. It would be especially helpful in this particular scene because it looks like they may have used an actual cadaver. This finale even tops the VIVA LA MUERTE finale in which a bull is sacrificed on camera. Unless you're doing the latest installment in the FACES OF DEATH series, you just can't do that kind of stuff in a narrative feature today.Those who see this now as merely a pretentious art film, forget how shocking it must have been then. That's especially true when you consider that it's a gay love story. One of the most unusual ever filmed. It's unsettling in a way that is stimulating. This movie was buried by the censors in 72. No major studio would green light such a production today. If you think you've seen it all, this is one you've got to go back and see in order to say that. Filmmaking could move forward if filmmakers looked back at the "scandals" the "Panic" movement of Arrabal, Topor and Jodorowsky caused in those days. It's a miracle that a film like this can survive intact. Definately not for all tastes but 10 of 10 anyway.