Fantastique: The Dreams and Nightmares of French Cinema

Limited Edition

Six dreams and nightmares of French cinema by Charles Vanel, Marcel L'Herbier, Edmond T. Greville, Jean Kerchbron, Juan Luis Bunuel and Raul Ruiz

Though rarely thought of as a home for genre filmmaking, France has fostered a long lineage of films at the border between realism and fantasy. Broadly gathered under the term of Cinéma Fantastique, these works often find the magical and the surreal lurking in the ordinary. Uncanny dreams, fleeting visions, or eerie apparitions lift their protagonists out of the everyday, transporting viewers into atmospheric worlds where the usual rules structuring our reality do not always hold. Formally striking and thematically stimulating, these phantasmagorical films blur the boundary between horror and wonder as they place the mysterious and the unexplained centre-stage.

Dans la Nuit (Charles Vanel, 1930) moves from joy to terror as a disfigured miner starts to wear a strange mask. In Marcel L'Herbier's La Nuit Fantastique (1942), a student follows a woman in his dreams. In Edmond T. Greville's Le Diable Souffle (1947), stormy weather and feverish longing threaten to drive everyone mad. A man lives the life of another in Jean Kerchbron's Le Golem (1967), In Juan Luis Bunuel's The Woman in Red Boots (1974) Catherine Deneuve appears to control people with her mind and finally in Raul Ruiz's Three Lives and Only One Death (1996) Marcello Mastroianni stars in four bizarre, intertwining stories.

Bonus Materials

• 4K restorations of Dans la nuit, La nuit fantastique, Le Diable souffle, The Golem, The Woman with Red Boots and Three Lives and Only One Death presented on six discs
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio for each film
• New introduction to Dans la nuit by Institut Lumière director Thierry Frémaux
• New commentary on Dans la nuit by film historian Pamela Hutchinson
• New interview with French cinema expert Ginette Vincendeau on La Nuit fantastique and French cinema under the Occupation
• Archival TV interview with director Marcel L’Herbier on La Nuit fantastique
• New commentary for Le Diable souffle by film critics Elena and Manuela Lazic
• New interview on Le Diable souffle and director Edmond T. Gréville with film critic David Thompson
• New interview with Kim Newman on The Golem and Gustav Meyrink’s novel
• Archival TV introduction to The Golem by journalist and writer Louis Pauwels
• The Golem photo gallery
• French, Italian, and English audio options for The Woman with Red Boots
• New interview with fashion expert Matteo Augello on The Woman with Red Boots
• New visual essay on The Woman with Red Boots by critic and author Samm Deighan
• Archival interview with Catherine Deneuve on The Woman with Red Boots
• New commentary on Three Lives and Only One Death by Adrian Martin
• Archival TV interview with Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni on Three Lives and Only One Death
• New documentary on the French cinéma fantastique then and now, featuring directors Lucile Hadžihalilović, Bertrand Mandico, Yann Gonzalez, and more to be confirmed
• Newly improved English subtitle translation for each film
• Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition 120-page book featuring new writing by Virgine Sélavy and David Cairns, as well as archival writing by Tzetan Todorov, André Bazin, Henri Alekan and more
• Limited Edition of 5,000 copies presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings