All About Lily Chou-Chou: In a sense, it can be called a 'coming of age' story. At the same time, the movie is far more pessimistic than most ordinary 'coming of age' stories I've seen/read (though I have to be honest here - I haven't had a lot of experience with that particular genre). Somehow the entire film has this very nostalgic, almost melancholic feel to it, partially helped by the film's brilliant soundtrack. Everything somehow feels very natural, very real, even the 'darker' turns taken within the story. I was left very impressed after watching it, though I feel like the film would've had an even stronger impact on me had I seen it at a younger age. Anyway, I feel like everyone who's ever used music as a means of escapism or coping with the problems in their life will in some form connect to this in some sense.
Lesson Faust: Czech director Jan Svankmajer's take on the well-known story of Dr. Faustus. Cobbles together aspects from different incarnations of the story and gives it a unique twist of its own. Svankmajer's version of Faust (the character) appears to be an average middle-aged guy who one day decides to follow the instructions written on a map and ends up in a bizarre puppet theater. What follows is... insanity, really. Tables spraying fountains of wine, giant wooden devil heads rolling through a forest, a homeless man carrying a severed human leg... It has a lot of common 'Svankmajer-isms' sprinkled throughout, including copious amounts of bizarre stopmotion sequences, a general atmosphere of uncomfortable surrealism and rundown/decaying locales. Svankmajer is high up there among my all-time favorite directors, and this movie only proves once again how utterly unique his works are. Highly recommended to anyone who's into weird stuff.