Donkey Skin + Alice

Catherine Deveuve stars in Demy's dazzling musical fantasy Donkey Skin, set in a mythical kingdom where a queen, on her deathbed, insists that her husband can remarry, but only if the woman is more beautiful than she. Unfortunately that woman turns out to be their daughter. As always with Demy, the charm, delicacy and high imagination of the film belies a dark undertone of irony and lament, walking a fine line between outrageous kitsch and extreme sophistication. Screening with Švankmajer's take on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, mixing animation with live action to create a bizarre universe in which machines, toys and puppets come to often malevolent life.