Dimensions of DialogueMovies like Dimensions of Dialogue
- Key Features:
- Surrealism, Communication breakdown, Social commentary, Abstract, Symbolism, Failure, Modern society, Relationships, Existentialism, Experimental film
- Tone:
- satirical, stylized
- Target Audience:
- Art house enthusiasts, Experimental film aficionados, Film students, Intellectual viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Discomfort
Dimensions of Dialogue

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.
Dimensions of Dialogue
A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.

Julio and Ana have been together for more than fifteen years. They have become a couple who no longer look at nor touch one another, and who have made daily fighting the essence of their relationship. This evening, Ana has invited their upstairs neighbors to come round, Salva and Laura, a couple younger than them, pleasant and friendly, but whose noises are now an annoyance for Julio and Ana... or perhaps a stimulus? The upstairs neighbors will make them an unusual and surprising proposal which will turn the evening into an exaggerated and cathartic experience for all four.

Five tales of human vulnerability and the hilarious, painful, and awkward curveballs life throws us.

People of different age, profession and social status answer two simple questions: who they are and what they want from life.

A static camera observes a room as it slowly fills with thirty-six characters from different stages of life, looping further through an absurd dance of social disconnection as each character moves in.

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.

A monumental traffic jam serves as the backdrop for the lives of the inhabitants of a Swedish city.

The idea is simple / A married woman and a single man meet / They love, they argue, fists fly / A dog strays between town and country / The seasons pass / The man and woman meet again / The dog finds itself between them / The other is in one, / the one is in the other / and they are three / The former husband shatters everything / A second film begins: / the same as the first, / and yet not / From the human race we pass to metaphor / This ends in barking / and a baby's cries / In the meantime, we will have seen people talking of the demise of the dollar, of truth in mathematics and of the death of a robin." - JLG

Two buddies visit a friends couple-urban sophisticate, inhibited parents. While they meet with the baby in his room, the two buddies start on bad jokes about his physique. But they ignore that in the kitchen, everyone hears them through the baby monitor !

Two parallel stories about people trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road... for over 35 years.

A lonely typographer with a cruel speech impediment but an eloquent inner voice must face his greatest fear.

Over three episodes, three respectable middle-aged men find themselves behaving badly. A teacher hides his pornographic magazine from a female student. A jogger steals milk and blames it on a newspaper delivery boy. A drunk man desperately searches for a public toilet late at night.

An experimental film, the last in Peter Kubelka's trilogy of “metric films”. Each frame of Arnulf Rainer is composed of darkness or light and silence or sound.

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.

A series of dark and troubling events forces Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life… or lack thereof.

After many years of marriage, Walter and Madge have grown apart: He lives on the floor and she lives on the ceiling. When Walter tries to reignite their old romance, their equilibrium comes crashing down, and the couple that can’t agree which way is up must find a way to put their marriage back together.

Paz seems to have a perfect life. She has a job, a partner and friends but something's missing. In reality, there are things she is unhappy about. She feels anxious and burdened but can't bring herself to express these feelings. Until one day she turns to a strange therapy that will make her say absolutely everything she thinks. How would your life be if you only said what you think?

A homeless man meets a medical school student who pays him to volunteer for a surgical procedure known as trepanation, drilling a hole in his skull, which ends up giving him the ability to communicate with the dark side of people’s subconscious minds.

Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.

A story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life. The plot includes Suzie ironing, Jane sitting on a couch, Jack walking in and out of the apartment, and the occasional solo singing number by Suzie or Jane. At one point the rabbits also make contact with their “leader”.

Inside a cafe while smoking a whole pack of cigarettes, a man poses an ambitious question: "What is Love?". A collection of vignettes and situations will lead the man to the desired conclusion.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

The narrative portrays a plain man who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world.

Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator to convince him to finish his work.

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

A director and screenwriter pen a script and, in the process, blur the line between fiction and reality.

Improbable encounters bring tenderness, laughter and compassion to a world of urban alienation.

A hilarious collection of animated television commercials that were rejected because of their creator's failing grip on sanity.

An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.

A hapless country doctor describes with breathless urgency a night-time summons to attend a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

On their fifth wedding anniversary, Sitio and Ana start arguing inside an elevator that keeps opening in their same floor. Emotionally and physically trapped, the two will have to work together to find a way out.

Nishi is a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.

A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.

The film tells the story of two good friends who live together, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent who works from his home, and Dave, a loser who works in an office where he is treated with contempt. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for the two, the entire world outside of their house disappears and is replaced with an endless white void.

A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

Husband does not understand his wife? Conflict with children? Do you want to be heard and stood in your place? Be afraid of your desires. In this family, everything changed places, including grandmother.

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

This is the story of the internal struggle between a man's Brain—a pragmatic protector who calculates his every move, and his Heart—a free-spirited adventurer who wants to let loose.

A triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.

There's something in his apartment. A man looking for an insect-like thing devolves into a bout of insanity as his subconscious mind begins to strangle his waking one.

Two prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.

A trilogy of separate stories. In "Labyrinth labyrinthos", a girl and her cat enter a strange world. In "Running Man", a racer takes on the ultimate opponent. In "Construction Cancellation Order", a man must shut down worker robots.

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.

Tragedy meets comedy in seven stories about how our entire world can collapse at any given moment.

Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself.

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

Adam, a lonely man with Asperger's Syndrome, develops a relationship with his upstairs neighbor, Beth.

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.

The last train travel of the year from Barcelona to Madrid, suddenly stops by a voltage drop in the middle of nowhere during a fierce snowstorm. Because of the peculiarity of its passengers, will begin to emerge hilarious conflicts between them.

Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.

As she does every morning, Lucie takes advantage of her journey to work to lose herself for a while in the pages of a good book. And as she does every morning, she joins her colleagues at the office with a smile. It's a working day just like any other. Then suddenly all activity in the office stops. All attention is turned towards the window of the opposite building opposite and abanner reading: Man Alone. Is it a hoax? A cry for help? Everyone has his own interpretation, and will try, by any means possible, to discover what lies behind this mysterious message.

Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

A humanoid robot deliverywoman muses on the mystery of human nature as she drops off parcels around the galaxy.

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

Five bizarre stories with no apparent connection to one another eventually become intertwined, resulting in surreal circumstances.

A young man tries to make things right again in his relationship after he and his girlfriend get in a fight.

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.

In the middle of a performance of the play "Le Cocu", a bad boulevard comedy at a Parisian theatre, Yannick gets up and interrupts the show to take the evening back in hand.

Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.

In this office satire, Orson, a straight-laced employee, retreats to a blissfully empty corner office to get away from his lackluster colleagues. But why does this seem to upset them so much?

The film is composed of receding planes in a landscape: a back garden and the houses beyond. The wooden lattice fence, visible in the image, marks the border between enclosed and open, private and public space, and forms both a fulcrum for the work and a formal grid by which the shots are framed and organised.

Emmi would like to cancel her subscription to "Like" magazine via e-mail. But due to a typo, her messages land in Leo Leike’s inbox. When Emmi repeatedly sends mails to the wrong address, Leo decides to inform her of her mistake. This marks the beginning of an extraordinary e-mail exchange, which can only be held between two strangers. Treading the fine line between complete strangeness and noncommittal intimacy, the two are soon sharing their innermost secrets and longings – until they need to face the unavoidable question: Will their feelings, sent and received virtually, survive the test of a real-life encounter? And what will happen if they do?

In the absence of any physical connection, this short explores alternative forms of contact among neighbors by making use of an old 16mm camera, a zoom lens, and a few meters of expired film.

In New York City, the lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a house-cleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.

A professional cellist has an encounter with a stranger on the subway which has unexpected and far-reaching ramifications on his life.

A woman trying to recover from a sexual attack is locked in a posh apartment with a corpse of the very man she's been dreaming would murder her. She tries to hang on to reality when objects around her seem to come to life.

In a vignette called "Strange to meet you," Roberto sits at a small table in a coffee bar. Five cups of coffee and two ashtrays are in front of him; he drinks and smokes. Steven joins him. They start a conversation about cigarettes and coffee. Steven likes to drink coffee before he sleeps, so he can dream faster. The conversation jumps around. "You know my mother?" asks Roberto. Steven describes coffee Popsicles. They switch seats; then switch back. Steven has to leave for a dental appointment he's not looking forward to. Roberto makes a startling offer, inspired no doubt by the coffee and cigarettes.

A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter how twisted or odd that way must be. A memorably bizarre screen version of Lewis Carroll’s novel "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland".

During an opulent and luxurious banquet, complete with hordes of servers and valets, eleven pampered guests participate in what appears to be a ritualistic gastronomic carnage. In this absurd and grotesque universe, an unexpected sequence of events destabilizes the endless symphony of abundance.

Several scary black-and-white animated segments in different styles appeal to our fear(s) of the dark.

Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

An account of the events before and after a murder committed by a disturbed businessman in a strained marriage, and what led him to perform such a shocking act.

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

A fine day in the life of a fly presented completely from the fly's point of view. A fine day until something dreary happens, that is.

Adequacy is relative. Vitalik the main character of the movie seems to be pretty normal. With a respectable office job, a comfy little dwelling and a personal couch doctor, Vitalik looks as adequate as a human can possibly be. Wait till he drinks and drives himself into depression, and after that falls in love with an under-age girl living next door. Who's adequate now?

In the town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock can speak to the dead, but no one other than his eccentric new friend believes his ability is real. One day, Norman's eccentric uncle tells him of a ritual he must perform to protect the town from a curse cast by a witch centuries ago.

An overstressed American businessman and a French chambermaid make a connection at an airport hotel in Paris.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.










