SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

gutoi Well, this masterpiece is beyond reviews. But today, just found my original movie ticket from Jun/18/1999 at 9:30pm, when American Cinematheque in Hollywood-CA, had 7 showtimes Jun/17-20, with Martin Scorcese & Francis Ford Coppola were present in dedication to Mr. Jerry Garcia, which helped pay for rescue of this almost lost occult treasure. In its full-length version of 3hrs. "I love this movie... I saw the film 3 times, which in my case is exceptional" -- Luis Bunuel. Can't forget this masterpiece, and happy to be there once in a life time! Presently, waiting to see if Netflix could have it for rent, and see it again, this time with a vintage eco-vert red wine bottle...

gavin6942 Upon finding a book that relates his grandfather's story, an officer ventures through Spain meeting a wide array of characters, most of whom have a story of their own to tell.The film was released in Poland uncut at 182 minutes, but it was shortened for release in the U.S. and UK at 147 minutes and 125 minutes, respectively. During the 1990s Jerry Garcia, together with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, financed a restoration and subtitling of an uncut print of the film. The restored film, re-released in 2001, is commercially available in VHS and DVD formats.The film is among 21 digitally restored classic Polish films chosen for Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.I don't even know that this needs a review. It is a great film, although a bit long for the casual viewer. When you have Scorsese and Coppola both endorsing a film, that is a great sign. Then throw in Luis Bunuel, and you know you have something special. But Jerry Garcia? I highly doubt any other film can claim such a diverse range of fans.

druid333-1 'Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie' (or as it is also known as,'The Saragossa Manuscript)is one of those strange little films that originally had a limited release in the U.S. (and a version cut by just under an hour.at that). This film,however came to the attention of Grateful Dead founder,Jerry Garcia,while attending a screening (in a questionable state of mind,I'm sure),back in 1966. He was so blown away by this film that he wanted others to see it,but that open window of opportunity was closed by the time he alerted his friends. He searched for years to get the American rights to distribute it out of his own pocket. Sadly,by the time of his death,news had arrived from Europe that a 35mm print of the original directors cut (which ran just over three hours)had become available. In memory of Garcia,the film's American distribution was handled by Francis Coppola & Steven Spielberg. Just why did Jerry Garcia go crackers over this film? Well,for one, this is a very surreal & psychedelic film,taken from the 19th century novel by Jan Potocki,which is about a very strange book that falls into the hands of a Flemish Captain,during the Napoleonic wars,and the effects it has on him (as well as anybody else who comes upon it). Wojciech Has directs a top notch cast of Polish actors,including the great Zbigniew Cybulski (star of many a prolific Polish film,including Wajda's Ashes & Diamonds,and others). Tadeusz Kwiatkowski's screenplay brings out the best in what is probably a difficult novel to make the transfer to the screen. This is the kind of film that one does not need the use of psychedelic drugs to get the utmost effect from (but probably wouldn't hurt). Not rated by the MPAA, this film does contain a bit of graphic violence,and a bit of mature content.

Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3) "The Saragossa Manuscript" is a very entertaining film that two or three viewings will eventually allow you to understand fully. Its style mixes an easy congeniality and libertine spirit à la "Tom Jones" (1963) with elements of sophisticated comedy and slapstick commedia dell'arte, all delivered by an expert cast and imbued with a tangible sense of fun and mystery.Its story centers around the efforts by a brave officer in mid-XVIIIth Century Spain to distance himself from ghosts or evil spirits that visit him every night and take the form of two charming Muslim sisters who want to be his lovers and bear his children, even in succubi form, and insist that he convert to Islam. Those erotic (and heretic) reveries also have something to do with devilry and all things forbidden and his encounters with those women are encouraged by the mysterious figure of the Cabalist (another forbidden science) and his sister Rebecca and severely repressed by roaming members of the Catholic Inquisition. This framing story is the pretext for a series of very involving and amusing moral tales told in flashback by several participants, who all echo each other and whose moral seems to be that all religious and social prohibitions and ghost stories should be taken with a grain of salt. In this ocean of mystery and gothicism stands the figure of Don Pedro Velasquez, a mathematician who befriends the hero and who seems the only character to believe in the cold light of reason (foreshadowings of Polanski's "The Fearless Vampire Killers").After several viewings, the only point in the film which remains mysterious is why Frasqueta's lover (Pena Flor) should appear with a bloodied face when he climbs in her bedroom through a window, a fact the viewer has to provide his own backstory for and which could be evidence that the original film was even longer than the 182 minutes at which it clocks in on the restored DVD edition. (Personal theory: Pena Flor really was Frasqueta's lover and the band of thugs Frasqueta hired to deceive her husband into believing he had paid to have his wife's lover killed really did attempt to kill him before he paid them to kill her husband instead.) Well, that and the fact that Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, an early fan of the film and one the persons responsible for its restoration, was fond of quoting a scene from the film that doesn't seem to exist anymore (a character's confrontation with Death at the foot of his bed, which, according to DVD Savant, could come from the 1960 Mexican film "Macario")...A WORD ABOUT THE DVD: This film was restored thanks to the efforts and money of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and the above-mentioned Jerry Garcia, and the collaboration of the director. It was shot in Dyaliscope, the French CinemaScope equivalent, which is always projected at a standard 2.35:1 ratio. This "enhanced for widescreen TVs" DVD shows an image with a ratio of 2:1, which means that the picture information is still squeezed by a ratio of 15 % in relation to the way it should be shown normally. In this presentation, the picture is "fish-eyed" and the characters and animals appear too slim. There is no way around this problem if you watch it on a 4:3 television set. However, if you own a widescreen TV, you can set-up your DVD player as for a standard 4:3 TV monitor and gently unsqueeze the resulting picture with any one of the "cheater" modes provided by your TV model to approximate a 2:35 presentation. There is no way of knowing if this drawback is the result of simple ignorance (mistaking the 2:1 squeeze of Dyaliscope with a 2:1 projection ratio) or of a compromise allowing to use the greater part of the TV screen in both 4:3 and 1.77:1 TV sets. It took me along time to figure out this problem and I am glad to share this little trick with you.