SCREENING IN THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION AUDITORIUM
“[O]ffers an unusually nuanced portrait of the legacy of colonialism… [a] masterwork of flow, with sculptural shadows and camera movements that coalesce to suggest a state of sensual dread.”
69 minutes. Not Rated. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. In English.
Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur elevated the horror film to new heights of poetic abstraction with this entrancing journey into the realm between life and death. When she takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a Caribbean island, a young nurse (Frances Dee) finds herself plunged into a mysterious world where the ghosts of slavery haunt the present and Vodou priests have the power to summon the living dead. Sugarcane swaying in a moonlit field, the hypnotic beat of ceremonial drums, the relentless pull toward death—the otherworldly atmosphere of this bold reimagining of Jane Eyre is as close as studio-era Hollywood ever came to pure dream-state surrealism. – Criterion Collection
ADDITIONAL SCREENINGS in this series:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978): Saturday, October 25 at 12 p.m.
28 Years Later: Sunday, October 26 at 3 p.m.