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City of Pirates (1983)

Director: Raúl Ruiz

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From Time Out Film Guide

Forget the pirates - there aren't any in Ruiz's provocative fairy-tale. But there is a lost boy, who has already massacred his family before he seduces his Wendy, in the shape of a downtrodden servant girl, and transports her to their Neverland (there isn't a city either). If Ruiz's 'free transcription' of Peter Pan sounds more like a subtitled Friday the 13th, it's because he takes the sexual undercurrent of children's literature as seriously as Angela Carter. The atmosphere is magical, perversely playful and macabre: in a moment of pure, surreal poetry, the boy-murderer sails a fleet of burning paper boats on a tide of his victim's blood. What really distinguishes this is a gripping performance by Alvaro as the haunted lover-cum-mother, and the images that are the very stuff of nightmares.

Author: IC 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Raúl Ruiz

Producer: Anne-Marie La Joisin

Cast: Hugues Quester, Anne Alvaro, Melvil Fouqaud, André Engel, Duarte De Almeida full cast

Genre(s): Fantasy

Duration: 121 mins


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