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Ley Lines

In the first part of our foray into cult and occultish cinema [linefeed/2982] we visited a couple of, not dissimilar, haunted houses, both previous occupants having been dabblers in the ‘black arts’. We also went for a jolly in the countryside to drop in on a few modern day witchy types with an unhealthy obsession with fungus. This time around it’s a cinematic master of the occult, some lurid digs and the chief pankster.

The Ninth Gate [IMDb]
We’re spoilt for choice when it comes to Roman Polanski and the occult. From his brief dalliance with comedy in the form of The Fearless Vampire Killers to the quintessential ‘woman gives birth to Satan by accident’ fest that is Rosemary’s Baby, to the much more subtle, paranoid and illusory, The Tenant, this is one director happy to indulge us in our fascination with the ‘dark arts’. It is The Ninth Gate in which, Polanski really gets his teeth into the ancient symbology of the occult with Johnny Depp chasing Satan’s tale in the hunt for a book purported to have been illustrated by the great red menace himself. Along the way we are taken on an educational journey through the sorts of things you don’t get to read about in the good book. Still not a patch on Rosemary, but boy is The Ninth Gate thorough.

The Masque of the Red Death [IMDb]
Masque is deliriously lurid fun that still manages to leave you feeling uneasy despite the technicolor digs our lead character (played with mucho gusto by Vincent Price) inhabits. Based on a short story by the Edgar Allan Poe, the film was produced by Roger Corman, famous for giving big names such as Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski and Martin Scorsese their first big breaks (in Masque a young Nicolas Roeg gets roped in as cinematographer). Masque makes absolutely no attempt to ground the story of a dodgy landowner with a massive castle mistaking a disease for Satan in any sort of reality. You do get to see a bunch of Hollywood extras camping it up whilst performing the ‘dance of the dead’ which is spooky enough in itself.

Antichrist [IMDb]
As mentioned in a previous post on occultish telly, Antichrist isn’t Lars Von Tier’s first dip into mystic waters of the occult [linefeed/2986]. The Kingdom was an epic investigation into modern day Danish superstition rooted in the ancient world. What Antichrist offers though is a slightly different, but no less worrisome beastie. The film is an intimate portrait of one couple and the distorted beliefs that come to wreak havoc on their previously tidy little lives. There has been much a-do about the supposed ‘women are inherently evil’ subtext to the film but don’t let Von Tier’s love of leading viewers down proverbial ‘garden paths’ distract you. Men are most definitely the weaker sex in Antichrist, whereas women seem so tied into mysticism and the natural world that it sends Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character completely loopy with the enormity of it all. In many ways Antichrist is one for the witches, rather than the warlocks. And, yes the talking fox is pretty ropey.

Space Man Card

Space Man die-cut card and printed envelope from a series by Korean stationery company, Millimetre Milligram [mmmg.net]. For shoppers in Australia and New Zealand, a selection is also available at selected Mag Nation stores [magnation.com].

The Making of 2001 Paperback

‘The Making of Kubrick’s 2001′, to give it it’s full title, was first published in 1968 to co-incide with the realse of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This paperback was edited by Jerome Agel, who worked with Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan on titles such as ‘I Seem to be a Verb’ and ‘The Medium is the Message’.

Wanna play swapsies?
Linefeed has a spare and slightly dog-eared but well loved copy of
‘The Making of Kubrick’s 2001′ to swap with a lucky reader.
Send us a message via Twitter [@linefed] if you’ve got something to swap.

Rob Cordiner [cordiner.com.au] is a Melbourne based designer who returned from an extended visit the the UK earlier this year. Since his return to Australia he has been busy indeed; laser etching mdf to great effect for Federation of Australian Writers, indulging in a spot of ambigram-ity for Graniph and getting his hands dirty in zine-land producing ‘Low End Marauders’, a collaged tribute to A Tribute called Quest. Copies of Low End are available to order from his site, a ’sample’ of which you can see below…

Zener Cards

Publications featured in the November edition our monthly reading list (just made it again, huh) includes 032c [032c.com] / Kasino A4 [wearekasino.com] / Dwell [dwell.com] / Little White Lies [littlewhitelies.co.uk] / Mark [mark-magazine.com] / Neo2 [neo2.es] / Graphic [graphicmag.kr] / Acne Paper [acnepaper.com].

BTW Feel free to syndicate me!

Mini Slide Viewer

If yer having trouble getting yer mits on a Leica Pradovit [leica-camera.com] then you might have to invest your hard earned pocket money in a mini slider viewer, on the plus side they also double as a rather fetching night lights.

Black Sesame Ice Cream

How awesome is this suspiciously grey looking sweet and savoury combo! Being a relatively warm place to live Australia has a lot of choice when it comes to ice cream but this current fave will be hard to better. Available from Le Creme in Sydney and FujiMart in Melbourne. For more locations see [lacreme.com.au].