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This Unnameable Little Broom is a British film of genre Fantasy directed by Frères Quay
This Unnameable Little Broom (1985)
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Add to a movie listThe Epic of Gilgamesh, or This Unnameable Little Broom (aka Little Songs of the Chief Officer of Hunar Louse) is a 1985 stop motion short film by The Brothers Quay. The film is loosely based on the first tablet of The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Boasting the longest title in the Quays' entire output, this 1985 film is generally known as This Unnameable Little Broom. The short began life as a proposed hour-long program Channel 4 exploring aspects of the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest known surviving work of literature, which would combine puppet animation, dance sequences, and live-action documentary elements. However, Channel Four were unsure about the project, and only agreed to fund a short animated sequence as a pilot - which is all that was ultimately made.
Synopsis
In the film, Gilgamesh is a grotesque, Picasso-esque being who moves by tricycle and patrols his box-shaped kingdom that hovers above a dark abyss. The yellow walls are inscribed with calligraphic text and its seemingly vast expanse is randomly broken up by square holes from which medical hooks occasionally project. A table – a mechanism and a trap – concealing a pulsating vagina within one of its drawers, stands at the centre of Gilgamesh’s domain. High above this space are strung high-tension wires, vibrating in the wind, one caught with a broken tennis racquet. First, Gilgamesh is seen setting up a bizarre trap to lure and catch the wild man Enkidu (who is depicted as a bird-like creature, partially made of genuine animal skeletons). Enkidu appears to live in a distant forest world visible through a hatch in the side of one of the walls of the floating kingdom. Gilgamesh is seen eating dandelion fluff during the opening credits before he finishes readying the trap. Once finished, Gilgamesh retreats to a room beneath the floor of the floating kingdom, awaiting Enkidu's arrival. Sometime later, Enkidu enters and becomes intrigued by a table with an anatomical, H.R. Giger/da Vinci-esque image of a woman's muscles (symbolizing the character Shamhat). The mechanism activates allowing Enkidu to look inside the image revealing a swaying piece of meat on a hook within the woman’s body. A drawer on the table opens, revealing the pulsating vagina. Ecstatic, Enkidu begins to mount the table, which sets off Gilgamesh's trap, flinging him onto the high-tension wires. An excited Gilgamesh resurfaces, retrieving the ensnared Enkidu by means of a giant gold cloth. Gilgamesh binds his captive with twine, beats him with a spiked club, and brushes his wings before cutting them off with scissors. Gilgamesh cuts the twine binding Enkidu and as the gold cloth falls to the ground the viewer is given a shot of Enkidu’s forest. The same fluff that Gilgamesh was eating earlier litters the forest floor and the viewer is allowed to observe an insect husk rapidly decay. In the end, Gilgamesh is seen riding frenzied circles around Enkidu, who is now trapped beneath the table-mechanism on which the trap was set.Comments
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Suggestions of similar film to This Unnameable Little Broom
There are 5 films with the same director, 17907 with the same cinematographic genres (including 81 with exactly the same 3 genres than This Unnameable Little Broom), to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.If you liked This Unnameable Little Broom, you will probably like those similar films :
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, 21minutesDirected by Frères Quay
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Animation
Rating63%
The story is told in eight parts and begins with a man in his apartment. He sees a red tram out his window and leaves his apartment to wait for the next tram to come by. As he sees the next tram approaching him, he puts his arms up to signal it to stop. At the same time, the wind begins to blow and a curtain from an open window in his apartment complex blows outward toward the sky. He boards the tram and for a while rides through the night continuously looking forward instead of out the windows at the scenery. Finally, in slow motion, he begins to move toward the curtain on the window of the tram and pulls it back. He sees strange objects as he passes through the night(such as a dart board and some tree trunks held up by metal bars). All these objects are the only thing he can see when he passes them because they are engulfed in light, while the areas surrounding the objects is pitch black. As the tram continues on, it appears to disappear around him and he is back in a makeshift version of his apartment looking out the blinds of his window. He closes the blinds and seems to be startled by something. He follows it to the vent in his wall and looks into it. There appears to be nothing in the vent and he turns away disappointed. The wind begins to blow harder outside as another tram passes by his apartment complex. He then gets the idea to take off the screen of his vent and stick his hand into it. As he reaches trying to find anything in the vent the scenery of the movie changes again and he is back riding on the tram holding what looks like a crumbled piece of paper with a blood stain on it. After he sees the paper he passes out in the seat of the tram and awakens in the makeshift version of his apartment. He puts the crumbled, blood-stained paper on a hanger to dry and the movie begins to spin showing different unidentifiable objects. Finally, the movie stops spinning and shows the front of a church. The man is again inside of the red tram, that seems to be driving through the middle of the church, looking out of the window. The screen switches from pitch black to different arts on the inside of the church in the point of view like the audience themselves are riding the tram. Time passes and the man is at a loss of where he is. He looks around confused and again, finds himself in his apartment. It is obvious that time has passed because the lighting is much darker and the mood is much more sleepy. After this, the man is on the tram and the scenery switches between him on the tram and the objects from earlier in the movie. The man is riding along and the tram accelerates. The tram goes faster and faster and the man's head thrusts back as the wind blows against him. This results in him falling off of a chair that he apparently played like it was the tram. He falls backward off the chair and hits his head on the ground. He tries to get up, but fails. More time passes (as can be seen as the light from outside rises and falls) and he is still motionless on the ground as the movie ends.
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, 20minutesDirected by Frères Quay
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Genres Animation
Rating69%
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, 1h39Directed by Frères Quay
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, 1h44Directed by Frères Quay
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