Movies Similar to Ideas in Search of Light

Peace To Your Home(1962)

A parable of man going through war & peace and finding unity in the end.

Bloodlust(1999)

An attempt to constitute a human / machine dialogue. It shows the filmmaker’s blood as seen / heard with the eyes / ears of the machine which is a film projector with optical sound. He affixed his blood onto clear film leader by cutting into the flesh and then pressing the film leader onto the wound. Additionally he had blood taken with a syringe and afterwards dripped it on the film leader. fresh and clotted blood was used.

Twenty-Four Eyes(1980)

TV adaptation of the novel "Twenty-Four Eyes", combining animation with a few live-action scenes.

Dragonfly(1988)

An abstract animation with a motif of a dragonfly, and a complex multi-exposure landscape of a field and a woman's naked body overlap.

The Little Flying Fish Gets Sick(1982)

The peaceful passage of daily life in the Pacific Ocean is upended in a flash on March 1, 1954, with the first American nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. The far-reaching fallout forever changes the lives of the ocean’s cheerful inhabitants.

Head(1968)

In this surrealistic and free-form follow-up to the Monkees' television show, the band frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing humor and anti-establishment social commentary.

Jazzimation(1999)

A jazzy film in which the spectator is forced to look with the ears and listen with the eyes. An abstract film drawn directly on the computer.

On Generation and Corruption(2017)

Borrowing its title from a treatise by Aristotle, the latest film by Makino Takashi is an abstract work that finds its drive in the clash between light and darkness. Entirely composed of superimposed images of Tokyo’s landscape and water sites, the film takes its rhythm from the cycles of repetition that are the pillars of life and civilisation. As light emerges from the chaos, Jim O’Rourke’s ambient drone sets the tone for what is to come.

the last day i can no longer remember.(2024)

An abstract, experimental, personal reappraisal of experiences and crises - the project was the result of an experiment.

Enigma: Nazo(1978)

Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.

Oh! What a Lovely War(1969)

The working-class Smiths change their initially sunny views on World War I after the five boys of the family witness the harsh reality of trench warfare.

Not Even Nothing Can Be Free of Ghosts(2021)

Rainer Kohlberger’s abstract film was created entirely without a camera. Through digital algorithms, he precisely arranged a rhythm of light and shadow that pulsates off the screen into our physical space with blinding intensity. The presence of light is almost felt as we are sucked into the image to become its ghostly accomplice. As we leave the theatre, the optical vibrations continue to haunt us.

The Glassworker(2024)

A young glassworker-in-training living with his pacifist father finds his apprenticeship upended by an impending war and the arrival of an army colonel to their seaside town.

Summer with Kuro(1990)

Hiroshima, summer of 1945. A young girl named Nobuko saves a starving kitten from crows. She wants to keep the kitten, but her parents dismiss the idea. Nobuko eventually convinces them to let her keep it. She and her brother Makoto name the cat Kuro. Kuro quickly brings joy and laughter to the family. As World War II takes its toll on Japan, it becomes harder for Nobuko and her family to care for Kuro. One August morning, Kuro begins acting strangely...

Kappo(2007)

Son of the White Mare(1981)

A horse goddess gives birth to three powerful brothers who set out into the Underworld to save three princesses from three evil dragons and reclaim their ancestors' lost kingdom.

Peace on Earth(1939)

Two baby squirrels ask grandpa to explain what "men" are when he comes in singing "peace on earth, goodwill to men". Grandpa tells the story of man's last war. This classic animation short was an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee.

Good Will to Men(1955)

A group of young mice is in the ruins of a church, practicing singing for an upcoming service. After singing an adulterated version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," the mice wonder about the last line, "Good will to men." One of them asks the choirmaster, an old mouse, "What are men?" The old mouse explains that they all killed each other off by building bigger and more destructive weapons, first guns, then missiles, then bombs.

Mamori(2010)

Mamori transports us into a black-and-white universe of fluid shapes, dappled and striated with shadows and light, where the texture of the visuals and of the celluloid itself have been transformed through the filmmaker’s artistry. The raw material of images and sounds was captured in the Amazon rainforest by filmmaker Karl Lemieux and avant-garde composer Francisco López, a specialist in field recordings. Re-filming the photographs on 16 mm stock, then developing the film stock itself and digitally editing the whole, Lemieux transmutes the raw images and accompanying sounds into an intense sensory experience at the outer limits of representation and abstraction. Fragmented musical phrases filter through the soundtrack, evoking in our imagination the clamour of the tropical rainforest in this remote Amazonian location called Mamori.

WAR(2023)

A war veteran tells his personal experience in “The War” to a psychiatrist, as a part of a social experiment. But nothing is as it seems…