Cinema of Swords: Swords in the Arthouse
Historical adventure and fantasy films tend to be straightforward genre pictures long on plot and action and short on deep themes and introspection, which is okay, you can’t have everything.
Or can you? Some ambitious filmmakers want it all, and are willing to risk losing an audience who expects simple action and adventure by giving them ideas to think about or visuals that are striking but hard to parse. Films with such vaulting ambitions often fall into the category of Interesting Failures, and even if they somehow pull it off, in theaters they rarely make it out of the arthouse and into wide release. That’s the case with our subjects this time around, three unique movies too unusual to find a broad global audience. But perhaps one or more of them will resonate with you.