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The Noose.The first scene in Wojciech Has’s filmography belongs to an accordion. The instrument is shown in a contracted state, dangling from the ceiling of an antique shop. Outside the shop, a little boy ogles it through the window; he dreams of playing it. Later in Has’s debut fiction short, Harmonia (1947), he dramatizes that dream. Has’s understanding of cinema as an oneiric canvas is apparent from the very beginning, and his sense that its narratives were meant to trip over themselves through elisions, reversals, and collapses reinforced itself throughout his career. His films are frequently in a state of mutation and his characters always on introspective journeys; objects are the only constant, as their material weight exhibits more solidity than his stories’ whims or his characters’ souls. All the while, Has’s camera acts like an accordion, playing in its own time, starting wide and pushing...

Scottish author James Hogg's 1824 novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a kind of religious satire/polemic crossed with a doppelganger tale and a forerunner of the plot twists of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Fight Club, ends with a curse against anyone tampering with its text.

In 1988, celebrated Scots filmmaker Bill Douglas prepared a screenplay adaptation, but died before he could get it made. I was present when the producer suggested it as a suitable project for Lindsay Anderson to take over, but Anderson himself died not long afterwards. A fresh script has recently been created by crime writer Ian Rankin and James Mavor, but has yet to go before the cameras. Those involved are advised to beware falling objects, shadowy assassins, sudden illnesses.

But in 1985, Polish director Wojciech Has created his own version, Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany, known more...

Like sugar-induced hyperactive children, David and I went to the only place where grownups ring doorbells to see art: The Upper East Side. Were we tricked? Yes. Were we treated? Yeah, that too.

Our first stop was Michael Werner Gallery, where their new and stunning second floor space houses a Peter Saul exhibition. This was a treat to see in the temple that is the Upper East Side. I have always thought Saul's work a precursor to Pop-influenced artists such as Kenny Scharf as well as walking lockstep with R. Crumb's social irreverence.

"Good grief, Elizabeth," quipped David, "it was a group show, with the coyly crass title Tumescence. And yet, you’re right to remember Saul over the others (Peter Doig, Sigmar Polke, and Michael Williams) as his was the only work that actually gives evidence of a truly turgid imagination. For me, the best piece was the recent Saul painting 'Head',...

★★★☆☆ Time behaves in unpredictable ways, notions of reality and fantasy collapse and painful personal and national histories are examined in two films by Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has, The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) and The Saragossa Manuscript (1964). Both films are based on works of literature; the latter from Jan Potocki's historical novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and the former drawn from several short story collections by Bruno Schulz, most notably Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.

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Christmas has a hell of a PR agent. A good PR maximises the audience for their client, always looking for lateral markets beyond the core appeal of the product. So if Christmas is fundamentally about giving, goodwill and forgiveness, there's no harm - from a PR's point of view - if it can also be made to be about sex, death and loneliness too. We seem to have had our traditional - and always sad - fusillade of pre-Christmas celebrity deaths this year, and if we're lucky, the period between now and new year will bring no new and nasty surprises in that line.

In the meantime our TV screens have filled up customarily with ads for perfume and booze which remind us that Christmas is also a Pagan-style locus for celebrations of the carnal and sensory. And with campaigns targeted at those who have no invite to the celebrations...

You have to hand it to Trembles. When it comes to introducing Dread Central readers to the obscure ... the offbeat ... the just plain weird, no one does it better! On tap for this week's Motion Picture Purgatory is the 1965 Polish film The Saragossa Manuscript (aka Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie).

Here's how Amazon describes the flick: Based on the book by the highly esteemed Count Jan Potocki, the film is reputedly a respectful, mostly faithful adaptation of this literary cat's cradle set in the weird fantasy landscapes of arid 17th Century Spain. Characters pop in and out of each other's stories with the random logic of a trip. The characters includes sexy ghost princesses, demon possessions, and many a corpse. The intriguing stylistic flourishes sit against the wonderful soundtrack, which was composed by Krzyszt Penderecki, famous for the scores of The Shining and Wild At Heart.

"Meta within meta inside of meta on top of meta!