Weekend links 812

satantango.jpg

• RIP Béla Tarr. I came late to Tarr’s films, he’d retired from directing by the time I worked my way through most of his oeuvre in 2019. As I’m always saying: better late than never. What I never expected from reading reviews was the irreducible strangeness at the heart of the later films, as well as their meticulous construction. With regard to the latter, mention should be made of the director’s regular collaborators: Ágnes Hranitzky (wife, editor and co-director), László Krasznahorkai (writer), and Mihály Víg (composer).

More Tarr: “The whole fucking storytelling thing is everywhere the same. That’s why I decided I have to do my movies.” Tarr talking to R. Emmet Sweeney in 2012; and at Criterion, Béla Tarr: Lamentation and Laughter by David Hudson.

• “When [Fela Kuti] first saw Lemi Ghariokwu’s work, he said, ‘Wow!’ Then he plied him with marijuana and asked him to design his album sleeves. The artist recalls their extraordinary partnership – and the day Kuti’s Lagos HQ burned.”

• At Smithsonan Mag: “Hundreds of mysterious Victorian-era shoes are washing up on a beach in Wales. Nobody knows where they came from.”

• At Ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon: The collage art of Wilfried Sätty.

• At the BFI: Leigh Singer selects 10 great Lynchian films.

• At Unquiet Things: The vast luminous art of Andy Kehoe.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s another Jan Švankmajer Day.

• New music: Light Self All Others by Tarotplane.

• At I Love Typography: Heart-shaped books.

• At Colossal: Luftwerk.

• Sailin’ Shoes (1972) by Van Dyke Parks | Dead Man’s Shoes (1985) by Cabaret Voltaire | New Shoes (2007) by Angelo Badalamenti.

Eclipse and Sunscreen

eclipse.jpg

Gobelins, the French school of film animation, has its own YouTube channel where students post a variety of clips showing technical exercises or, as in the case of this pair of films, complete works. Eclipse (directed by Theo Guignard, Noé Lecombre and Hugo Moreno) and Sunscreen (directed by Xinzhi Ma, Yuan Liu, Yufan Chen and Zixiao Yue) are both science-fiction pieces that are also very short, being more like anecdotes than stories. Of the two I prefer Eclipse but both are very accomplished, and a welcome riposte to the ubiquity of the Pixar house style. Stylistic exercises like these are seldom extended to feature-length (or if they are, they get cancelled like Scavengers Reign) but it’s good to see younger animators following in the footsteps of René Laloux.

sunscreen.jpg

And speaking of Laloux, the restored Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) was released on blu-ray in France last year. As with many French releases there are no English subtitles but it’s good to know it’s available again. I’m waiting now for a high-definition reissue of Gandahar.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Terra Incognita, a film by Adrian Dexter and Pernille Kjaer
Arzak Rhapsody
Fracture by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi
The Captive, a film by René Laloux

Weekend links 811

reiniger.jpg

A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), a feature-length animated film by Lotte Reiniger.

Hélice 39 is a speculative-fiction journal (in Spanish) whose current issue includes an article by Marcelo Sanchez: “What did Borges think of Lovecraft?”

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

• Old music: Hydrophony For Dagon by Max Eastley & Michael Prime; The Adventures Of Prince Achmed by Morricone Youth.

Public Domain Review lists some of the writers whose works will enter the public domain this year.

• “Modern Japanese Printmakers celebrates vibrant mid-20th-century innovation“.

• At Nautilus: “Here’s what’s happening in the brain when you’re improvising.”

• At the BFI: Pamela Hutchinson selects 10 great films of 1926.

• New music: The Future Is Now by Pietro Zollo.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Phil Solomon Day.

• 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse.

Runaway Horses (“poetry written with a splash of blood”) (1985) by Philip Glass | Unicorns Were Horses (1996) by New Kingdom | Red Horse (2002) by Jack Rose

Weekend links 810

luminet.jpg

Image of a Spherical Black Hole with Thin Accretion Disk (1979) by Jean-Pierre Luminet. Via.

• “I would be willing to bet that every student of fantastic fiction has at some point in his or her career read a book with the name EF Bleiler printed on its cover.” Brian J. Showers of Swan River Press talked to EF Bleiler in 2005.

• “James Webb Space Telescope confirms 1st ‘runaway’ supermassive black hole rocketing through ‘Cosmic Owl’ galaxies at 2.2 million mph.”

• “You have to be ready to see it”: Abel Ferrara and Catherine Breillat on why Pasolini’s Salò is a gift that keeps giving.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Kosten Koper presents…Bill Nelson: Acquitted By Mirrors (1982–1987).

• At Skurrilsteer: Ongoing research into the life, work and legacy of Edward James.

• At The Daily Heller: All that jazzy record cover design.

Cygnus X-1 (1977) by Rush | Blackhole Dropout (1979) by Tod Dockstader | The Competition Of Supermassive Black Holes And Galactic Spheroids In The Destruction of Globular Clusters (1999) by Jah Wobble

Weekend links 809

hubacher.jpg

Atlantis by Sarah Hubacher.

• Regular readers will know Leigh Wright from his Wyrd Daze creations which I’ve linked here many times in the past. (The same goes for his frequent Mixcloud compilations.) Leigh’s wife died recently which means he now has to return to the UK from Canada where he doesn’t have permanent resident status. His request for help is here.

Melinda Gebbie’s Greatest Fits: “Ranging from painting, illustration, Comix, portraiture, eroticism and so much more, this fully illustrated and beautifully presented book is a glimpse into the unique mind of a woman forged in the fire of counterculture.”

• At The Daily Heller: Adrian Wilson’s collection of elaborate vintage fabric stamps is explored in a two-part feature here and here.

• Mixes of the week: DreamScenes – December 2025 at Ambientblog, and ASIP – Reflection on 2025 at A Strangely Isolated Place.

Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2025. Thanks again for the link here!

• At Colossal: “Field Kallop meditates on universal patterns through bold chromatic compositions.”

• “Scientists discover massive underwater ruins that may be a lost city of legend.”

• New music: The King In Yellow by Blarke Bayer.

• RIP Rob Reiner.

Atlantis (1955) by Les Baxter | The Atlantis Healing Harp (1982) by Upper Astral | A Man For Atlantis (2000) by Broadcast