This week we visit The Museum of Wonders on behalf of DVDSnapshot. The more time that passes, the more I'm convinced this is one for independent film fans. Perhaps perfect for a double-bill with The Last Circus?
Official Synopsis:
When the beautiful dancer Salome learns
that the dwarf circus owner Marcel has just received an inheritance,
she marries the lovesick, diminutive performer. All the while
planning to steal his fortune and run off with her lover, strong man
Sansone. When Marcel and fellow performers discover her evil plan,
they band together to carry out a beautiful revenge.
In this theatre, The Museum of Wonders,
frozen somewhere between reality and a dream, we find ourselves
facing a mirror reflecting our souls, through the embodiment of our
utmost fears. Perhaps we wouldn't stare in amazement if we thought
for just one moment, that these masks... these characters, are simply
us.
Our Take:
It's not by mistake that Domiziano
Cristopharo opens The Museum of Wonders with a face in the
moon clearly inspired by film pioneer Georges Méliès. It reminds
the audience that with creativity and the sparest of cash, any
filmmaker can stamp of personal vision upon a movie.
Essentially a retelling of Tod
Browning's Freaks set among
a side-show experimental theater company: Treacherous beauty wiles
her way into the heart of a dwarf performer and, upon betraying him,
faces the wrath of his true love and the extended family of oddities.
There's still some lovingly photographed physical deformities (and
the world's scrawniest strongman), but these sword-swallowers,
bearded ladies, mimes and the rest make up a self-selected family of
outsiders to which she doesn't really belong. Is it any wonder her
transgressions must be punished?
