The predominant look of indie films for the last decade or so has been what you might call the “A24 filter.” Even though the actual cinematography of A24 films ranges widely, you kinda know the stereotype—practical lights in frame, lower contrast in the color grade, lots of wide lenses.
And don’t get me wrong, I like this style as much as the next cinephile. But I think after years spent in the neon hues and high-octane editing that has become so closely associated with Gen Z and modernity, a new look is coming. Or rather, an old look. It’s already bubbling up on Pinterest, reemerging on Tumblr and peeking out of the edges of the dark forest. It’s filling the void for a generation that lovingly screencaps Marie Antoinette (2006) and The Love Witch, desperately yearning for other films to slake that thirst for beauty.
It’s what I’m calling dazzle films.
Dazzle films have a few main things in common:
They are awash in colorful, almost childlike hues that largely originate in the sets, props and costumes (rather than in the lighting). Occasionally the film will be hand-tinted.
They are consciously lo-fi and use practical effects that require active audience imagination and participation to fill in the blanks.
Relatedly, they usually have a semi-fantastical subject matter. But as with traditional fantasy stories, there’s always a subtle undercurrent of darkness.
They all have a certain viral potentiality to them—in other words, they are eye-catching in the feed.
And of course, they all glitter.
The feeling of dazzle films—that kind of raw wonder compounded by beauty with a ripple of looming tension—can be best distilled by this passage from the Grimm’s story Twelve Dancing Princesses, which is both deliriously gorgeous and a little unsettling.
“Down they all went, and at the bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully…They came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering diamonds…”
Key examples of dazzle films are scattered through out this post but to make a succinct watchlist, these are the movies I most regularly see percolating through Pinterest.
Ruslan and Ludmila (1972) - It’s a pain trying to watch this one but worth it if you can deal with some wonky subtitling on Youtube.
Donkey Skin (1978) - My favorite Jacques Demy film (sorry, Young Girls of Rochefort and Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but this movie just eats).
The Tales of Hoffman (1951) - The only movie on this list I haven’t seen. I look forward to it though!
Thief of Baghdad (1940) - Much of this movie hasn’t aged well but there’s some gorgeous production design.
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (1988) - A little over an hour and worth every minute.
Mughal e Azam (1960) - I had to order this on DVD a few years back but I believe it might finally be available to watch online.
Honorable mentions might be Prospero’s Books (1991) and that gem scene from Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
You can see it’s more a vibe that unifies these movies than a specific era or even a certain film stock. And though they’re vintage, it’s not their nostalgic value that makes me think we’re about to see a comeback—it’s because dazzle films might be a sharper way of capturing the new internet.
There’s been a recent trend where filmmakers are preoccupied with trying to represent something raw and real. But I’d argue that these days, our communal experience of the world—as mediated by the web—is far more mystical. Nothing is quite real; most Google Image searches turn up floods of AI-generated images, things that almost seem factual but aren’t. Then there are the real photos that have been digitally-altered (usually to make them more beautiful). I’ve started to get this strange sensation that the whole web is fake. No, not fake. Fantasy.
Dazzle films aren’t just relevant because we’re seeing a shocking cultural emphasis on beauty, an Internet that forces everyone to curate and aestheticize. As John Early joked in a recent interview (that I cannot find again for the fucking life of me), modern movies are so literal: they want viewers to feel like they’re in a scene. But the reality of 2024 is that our lives are mediated by screens…so the flatness of the dazzle film set design - namely, the painted sets and 2-D foreground objects - actually better speaks to our experience.
And speaking of AI images—which I know I’ve been doing a lot lately—I’ve noticed that they tend to add this certain shine to photos. Take any image from prolific AI artist Chaos Dreamland. Yes, their subject matter tends to be retro, high-femme and pink-hued, but even when there aren’t diegetic sparkles in the image, everything just…glitters.
You can always tell an AI image from a real one because there’s just something slightly off about them; maybe a spoon is misshapen, or some letters are a cross between multiple alphabets. It reminds me of how in dazzle films, the artifice is laid bare. Rather than reading as duplicitous, the falsehood becomes theatrical. Through the magic crystal ball of the screen, sequined costumes that are garish IRL become fit for royalty and fishing wires disappear. In that great beyond, anything is possible. And I think in a culture that has turned the Internet—a space originally intended for experimentation—into a place of rampant capitalism, we yearn for visible, joyful play.
So that’s my prediction for upcoming trends in cinema. Until then, here are some things that I think can help you capture the feel of dazzle films
Shopping the Shine
Some objets that give you that good glittery sensation. We’re looking for things that are a little bit magical and mystical, things that have an aura of the unreal. They don’t have to sparkle but if they do…hey, that’s just a bonus.
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