The Impossible is Possible

Raining frogs, talking photographs, giant talking rabbits... in recent years the literary style known as 'magic realism' has been manifesting itself in film terms. Hugh Travers provides an overview of the genre and its cinematic applications.

Escapism is dead. Reality is back with a bang. The documentary is enjoying a renaissance and you can't flick through two TV channels without coming across some Reality TV show redefining our concept of the lowest common denominator. Anybody who reads the culture pages in the Sunday papers will be familiar with this mantra. It's an easy argument to make. There is an increasing obsession with the real as audiences become desensitised to the codes of narrative fiction. Reality TV is the new soap opera and feature documentaries are the new melodrama.

Yet it is equally easy to argue to the contrary. If escapism is dead then how does one explain the phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings and the plethora of superhero adaptations currently invading our multiplexes? How can reality and fantastical escapist stories be thriving simultaneously? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining a different phenomenon that has slipped under the radar: the emergence of magic realism in cinema. In recent years an ever-increasing crop of films have emerged that, though grounded basic realism, contain incongruous fantastical elements. In Magnolia it rains frogs. In Amélie there are talking paintings and the main character turns to water. In Run Lola Run time is repeated three times over. In Donnie Darko jet engines fall from the sky, and time travel is possible. This is to name but a few. So what's new? Haven't there always been crazy things like this in films? Why isn't this just fantasy or horror or any number of other genres? To answer this it is important to have a basic understanding of the rich tradition of magic realism.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 102