Since 1977, Isao Yamada, director of instant Spectacle classic I’VE HEARD THE AMMONITE MURMUR, has produced over a hundred experimental short film-poetries in a collection he calls Yamavicascope. These films emphasize the “non-digital optical sensation” produced by the 8mm (and occasionally 16mm) film with which they are shot and hand-edited by Yamada. This emphasis on materiality is seen throughout his artistic output, which includes paintings, manga, graphic design, and a calligraphic font known as “Yamada-moji,” which he uses for the titles and type in his films.

This March, Spectacle is honored to present a two-night Yamavicascope retrospective. These four programs, titled by Yamada himself, invite a career-spanning glimpse into the director’s “private films.”

Special thanks to Eiichi Aso, Yamavica Film, and YHI.

PROGRAM 1: NOSTALGIA, SADNESS, AND THE SEA

FRIDAY, MARCH 14 – 7:30 PM

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Yamada was 21 years old when he joined the Tenjo Sajiki theater troupe, one of the most provocative forces in the emerging avant-garde angura scene, co-founded and led by Shuji Terayama. Yamada credits his relationship with Terayama and working on the art direction of his features as his awakening to film. Following this, Yamada co-founded the Gingagahou-sha Film Club in Sapporo with manga artist Yumekichi Minatotani. The works in this program make up some of Yamada’s earliest forays into film and introduce his first major collaborator in Minatotani.

AN INCIDENT OF NIGHT
(スバルの夜)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1977
Japan, 25 min

Yamada’s directorial debut and the first film released by the Gingagahou-sha Film Club.

NIGHT OF THE MILKY WAY RAILROAD
(銀河鉄道の夜)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1982
Japan, 45 min

THE FAN OF SPIRAL SHELL
(巻貝の扇)
Dirs. Isao Yamada, Yumekichi Minatoya, 1983
Japan, 12 min

Yamada’s first film shot on 16mm.

SAD GADOLF
(悲しいガドルフ)
Dirs. Isao Yamada, Yumekichi Minatoya, 1984
Japan, 20 min

Total running time: 102 min

PROGRAM 2: WAYS OF REMEMBERING YOUR DREAMS

FRIDAY, MARCH 14 – 10:00 PM

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This program features two more of Yamada’s collaborators: Hiroko Ishimaru (who stars in I’VE HEARD THE AMMONITE MURMUR) and Mizuho Kudo.

CRYSTAL
(水晶)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1988
Japan, 12 min

THE CROWN OF DREAMS
(夢を冠に)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1990
Japan, 16 min

THE DESCENDENT OF ANDROGYNOUS
(アンドロギュヌスの裔)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1995
Japan, 25 min

FRAGMENTATION OF NIGHT
(夜のフラグメント)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1996
Japan, 12 min

SWAMP
(沼)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1999
Japan, 12 min

A STAR AND A PROPELLER
(星とプロペラ)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2000
Japan, 13 min

Total running time: 90 min

PROGRAM 3: MARIONETTE FANTASIES

SATURDAY, MARCH 15 – 5:00 PM

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フィルムの死が先か、「私」の死が先か、という状況にある。 (The situation is whether the death of 8mm film comes first, or the death of ’I’ comes first.) – Yamada (2017)

GIRL ORPHEE
(少女オルフェ)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2001
Japan, 20 min

WINTER FLOWER
(逢魔ヶ時)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2003
Japan, 15 min

FEEL
(そして彼女の手は優しく触れる)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2004
Japan, 15 min

CHRYSANTHEMUM INSPIRATION
(Chrysanthemum綺想)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2005
Japan, 20 min

WINTER HAS A DREAM
(白昼夢)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2008
Japan, 20 min

Total running time: 90 min

PROGRAM 4: LIFE FLASHING BEFORE ONE’S EYES, AND FABLES

SATURDAY, MARCH 15 – 7:30 PM

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DESPAIR ARABESQUE
(絶望アラベスク)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2011
Japan, 34 min

REFLECTION
(Kioku)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2014
Japan, 23 min

An official selection of the 61st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

APPARITION’S MOMENT
(幻視の一瞬)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2017
Japan, 3 min

THE NIGHT OF COPERNICUS
(コペルニクスの夜)
Dir. Isao Yamada, 2020-21
Japan, 28 min

Total running time: 88 min

THE JOURNEY
dir. Peter Watkins, 1987
Sweden, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, USSR, Mexico, Japan, Scotland, Polynesia, Mozambique, Denmark, France, Norway, and West Germany, 873 min
In multiple languages with English subtitles.

TICKETS
Pricing: $20 for the whole film ($10/day) or $5 for each screening (available at the box office only)

SATURDAY, MARCH 29
Part 1 (eps. 1-3), approximately 140 min: 1:00-3:40
Part 2 (eps. 4-6), approximately 135 min: 4:00-6:15
Part 3 (eps. 7-9) approximately 135 min: 7:15-9:30

SUNDAY, MARCH 30
Part 4 (eps. 10-12), approximately 137 min: 1:00-3:15
Part 5 (eps. 13-15), approximately 150 min: 4:00 – 6:30
Part 6 (eps. 16-19), approximately 194 min: 7:30-10:45

Against a great evil, a small remedy does not produce a small result; it produces no result at all…

Long underseen due to its towering length and the density of its political ambitions, Peter Watkins’ 14 1/2-hour documentary THE JOURNEY is a powerful work of political philosophy. Originating as an anti-nuclear-war film and a followup to Watkins’ early film THE WAR GAME (1965), the project steadily grew to encompass a myriad of interconnected issues underpinning the poor state of human civilization.

Spread across 19 chapters that continually criss-cross the globe, THE JOURNEY is a provocative pedagogical tool that stands in stark contrast to the dominant hegemonic ideologies that define Watkins’ concept of the monoform. We’ll be presenting the entire film in one weekend, spread across two days, with series passes available in advance and individual tickets to each section available at the door.

The 14½ hours of The Journey are organized into an immense filmic weave that includes candid discussions with “ordinary people” from many countries; community dramatizations; a variety of forms of deconstructive analysis of conventional media practices; presentations of art works by others; portraits of people and places; and a wealth of specific information about the knot of contemporary issues that includes the world arms race and military expenditures in general, world hunger, the environment, gender politics, the relationship of the violent past and the present, and, especially, the role of the media and of modern educational systems with regard to international issues …

The more one fully attends to The Journey, the more the coherence of its vision becomes apparent. At first, the film seems to jump abruptly from one place and time to another, but by the end of the film, Watkins has made clear a belief that has been one of the foundations of all his work: that fundamentally, all places are simultaneously distinct and part of one place; all times are special and part of one time; all issues are important for themselves and as parts of a single, interlocking global issue. The Journey creates a cinematic space in which the viewer’s consciousness circles the earth continually, explores particular families and places, and discovers how each detail ultimately suggests the entire context within which it has meaning. […] Watkins’ film develops in the direction not of narrative climax and resolution, but of an expanded consciousness of the world …

—Scott MacDonald, “Avant-Garde Film Motion Studies”

Like transmissions from another planet: re-animated ghosts and/or corpses stalk swimsuit-clad women (usually wearing one-pieces) and their singing paramours. The most familiar parts of these movies resemble (and are, uh, directly influenced by) American horror movies like The Exorcist, The Omen, The Evil Dead, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. But only parts: Doom Boom horror movies are mostly concerned with romantic angst, shirtless he-man punching, and cross-generational, parents-just-don’t-understand miscommunication. Eventually, shaman-like tantriks are called in to vanquish hulking vampire/zombie-types with big foreheads and splotchy monster make-up. And then everybody gets married and/or respects their elders. — Simon Abrams, Fangoria

Every Ramsay movie ends with the monster exploding. Every single one. — Grady Hendrix, Film Comment

The history of horror in Indian cinema hinges on a single scene in 1970’s EK NANHI MUNI LADKI THI, a box office bomb produced by Mumbai electronics shop owner turned would-be film impresario F.U. Ramsay. When his sons Tulsi and Shyam visited the theater where the film was playing, they noticed something weird: Throngs of audience members would pay the ushers a handful of change to be let into the empty auditorium to watch one specific scene. In it, star Prithviraj Kapoor breaks into a museum, protected by armor and disguised by a grotesque mask and black cape. He looks “just like Dracula,” Tulsi recalled in a 2012 interview, and his armor repels police bullets, making him unkillable, “like a ghost. A monster.”

And so it was that the seven Ramsay brothers, already admirers of the likes of Hammer productions, trained themselves as filmmakers and founded a horror empire. Ramsay movies were very much a family affair. Tulsi and Shyam directed from Kumar’s scripts, Kiran recorded the sound, Keshu designed the lighting, Gangu served as cinematographer, Arjun edited, and their mother Kishni and their wives did makeup and craft services.

Beginning with India’s first zombie movie, DO GAZ ZAMEEN KE NEECHE (1972), Ramsay films were popular with rural audiences, similar to the regional success of many independent and low-budget horror films in America during the pre-multiplex days. PURANA MANDIR was the second-highest-grossing Indian film of 1984, sparking a host of copycats, the so-called “Doom Boom.” This both cemented horror’s place in Bollywood history and risked oversaturation, especially for a genre considered low-rent and disreputable by higher-caste urban audiences and the industry elite. “No stars, no cars” was a Ramsay refrain — their casts of inexperienced ingenues and weathered B-movie hams got to set by bus and often wore their own clothes, which tended to preppy sportswear.

These films were, to say the least, resourceful. The Ramsays picked locations (not infrequently recycled between productions) that took advantage of the landscape of rural Mahabaleshwar, with its ruined colonial-era villas, creepy woods, and dungeon sets dressed up with cobwebs, taxidermied animal heads, and random/scary wall art. Interesting camera angles, lighting gels, and smoke machines made low-cost contributions to a supernatural Bava-esque atmosphere.

The films draw from universal horror grammar. Characters sport awesomely ’80s chest thatches and blowouts, and they make terrible, terrible decisions. Plots and creatures were aggressively ripped off from classic and contemporary American creature features, from coffin-dwelling vampires to girls glowing with the sickly aura of demonic possession, with a locally specific emphasis on marriage plots and family-first morals. The monster dwelling in an old house stood an equal chance of being vanquished by a crucifix or an om. These films invariably boast a classic masala mix of song and dance, broad and often offensive comic relief, amateur fight scenes, and (almost entirely chaste) romance. More campy than scary, the Ramsays’ best films are nevertheless inspiring for their craft, imagination, and enthusiasm — all on crystal-clear display in the 2023 digital restorations by Pete Tombs for a Mondo Macabro Blu-Ray release.

Programmed in collaboration with Simon Abrams.

VEERANA
(Deserted Place)
dir. Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay, 1988
India, 140 mins
In Hindi with English subs

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, MARCH 10 – 7 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 25 – 10 PM

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A “uniquely surreal possession movie” (Grady Hendrix, Film Comment) starring the model Jasmin in her only significant film role as a young woman possessed by a seductress demon who (in a typical Ramsay touch) is introduced and vanquished in the pre-credits sequence before returning to torment a new generation. Perhaps the pinnacle of the Ramsays’ art, Veerana features their groddiest monster makeup and most sinister servants, with setpieces drawing alternately from arcane religious superstition and meta-modern references to horror masters like Hitchcock (comically) and Hooper (plagiaristically).

PURANI HAVELI
(The Old Mansion)
dir. Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay, 1989
India, 145 mins
In Hindi with English subs

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 13 – 7 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 22 – 10 PM

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Anita, whose parents were killed when they stopped for a quickie in an abandoned mansion, is all grown up and wants to marry lowly fashion photographer Sunil. But her auntie and uncle have a plan to steal her inheritance that involves moving her and her entire entourage into a haunted house — by coincidence, the very one where her parents died. Anita, her suitors, and her gal pals are duly menaced by terrifying visions of a hairy beast who lives in the basement, a menacing but extremely slow-moving suit of armor that no one seems able to simply run away from, and a strange old man who wanders the grounds moaning dire warnings that everyone mostly ignores (even after their peers have started to die mysteriously). Plus: A subplot about a dangerous and romantic bandit king (and lover of Donna Summer) who bears a striking resemblance to the crew’s portly homophobic servant.

BANDH DARWAZA
(Closed Door)
dir. Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay, 1990
India, 145 mins
In Hindi with English subs

SUNDAY, MARCH 2 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 7 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, MARCH 11 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 18 – 10 PM

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In their 1984 breakthrough hit PURANA MANDIR, the Ramsays found their monster in Anirudh Agarwal, a six-foot-five civil engineer with a pituitary tumor and a face seemingly carved out of granite. “They didn’t even need to put make-up on me,” he would reflect to the BBC. Agarwal returns here for his other great Ramsay monster role: a caped and fanged bat demon fed a steady diet of maidens by a coven of familiars. Like all Dracula stories, BANDH DARWAZA is a meditation on taboo desire and repression, much of it given over to a love triangle between a temptress (promised to the demon before her conception by her infertile mother) and the couple she tries to come between, even intruding on their love duets.

CHILDREN OF THE STONES
Dir. Peter Graham Scott, 1977
United Kingdom, 174 min
In English

THURSDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 28 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS
Advance tickets are sold out, but additional seats may be made available at the door for standby customers.

This vernal equinox, Spectacle is chuffed to present the TV folk horror phenomenon CHILDREN OF THE STONES. Unleashed on an unsuspecting British audience by Welsh network HTV in 1977, it’s often described as the scariest children’s series ever made.

Peter Demin stars as Matthew Brake, a boy accompanying his astrophysicist father Adam Brake (Gareth Thomas) to the sleepy English village of Milbury to study the local stone circle. But from the start, something is not quite right. After strange interactions with the locals, father and son meet Mayor Hendrick (masterfully played by Scottish character actor Iain Cuthbertson), who knows an awful lot about astrophysics for a civil servant. What secrets are Hendrick and his cohort hiding, and what do they have to do with the stones?

A maze of multiple timelines, ley lines, pagan folklore, and a dissonant, cacophonous musical score of wailing voices converge into a mystery that will have you on your toes until the final title crawl. It’s pretty phantasmagorical.

All seven episodes will be played in succession, with a 15-minute intermission between episodes 4 and 5.

MICROCINEMA SOLIDARITY: Video Revelations from Visual Studies Workshop
dir. Various, 1971-1975
United States, 75 min
In English

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 5 PM

TICKETS (this event is $10)

Presented by Tara Merenda Nelson, VSW Curator.

Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) is a nonprofit artist space, audiovisual archive, and microcinema founded in 1969 in Rochester, NY with a mission to support the makers and interpreters of images. Critically interested in the role images play in society, VSW became a repository for discarded media deemed unusable or obsolete by larger institutions and has provided unrestricted access to artists interested in the creative reuse of archives.

Most tapes in the collection originate from artists, activists, citizen journalists, and public access programming from Central and Western New York, as well as significant early experimental artists’ video productions. VSW has worked to preserve the most unique—and endangered—tapes in this library.

This screening will present recently preserved tapes highlighting the vibrant, largely unseen history of video art and activism in New York State. Pulling from the archive of video collective Portable Channel, which operated between 1971-1986, the selections include homemade experiments with the electronic image by artists Steina and Woody Vasulkas, a Videofreex party (where everyone is using PortaPacks), and coverage of the 1971 Attica uprising.