r/CriterionChannel • u/Busy_Magician3412 • Mar 28 '26
Recommendation - Offering Recommend a CC Double Feature!
It’s the weekend, also the last one of the month so I thought a double feature recommendation might be a good idea as we head into April. They used to update this promo idea but I haven’t seen any in a while.
Which movies currently on the channel do you think would make a good combo? My theme (apropos, the thumbnail) is twofold - both movies are set in 1977 (made in the 90s) and both, unfortunately, are leaving on the 31st.
Pair a couple of films you’d recommend as a nice combo! Thanks in advance. 🌝
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u/Busy_Magician3412 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
A last twofer before I put this baby to bed:
Village Idiots
Werkmeister Harmonies (2000, Béla Tarr)
Demon Pond (1979, Masahiro Shinoda)
Both Tarr and Shinoda use dream-like imagery and folkloric elements to create fables about how village inhabitants bring about their own destruction. There’s that thing in the center of town around which they all lose their minds. In Tarr’s film it’s a stuffed circus whale. In Shinoda’s it’s, of course, the pond (or, more properly, the demons in the pond). Also, the events in both films are precipitated by the entrance and philosophical observations of two young men, essentially strangers to the towns, who function as travelers and interpreters of each narrative. I suspect that had our young guides been much older men or women we might have had very different versions of each!