Five contemporary fantasy films you may have missed
Not all fantasies take place in a land far, far away or hundreds of years before our own time. Many great fantasy stories are set in our very own contemporary worldor at least something very like it. Cinema history has its share of great contemporary fantasy films. Here are five that are worth a look.
- Wings of Desire (1987): In Wim Wenders’s beautiful film, two angels wander through Berlin, always observing and never interactinguntil one falls in love with a circus trapeze artist. The film was remade for an American audience as City of Angels (1998), but the story is very different.
- Unbreakable (2000): This fantasy film is a “realistic” look at the superhero genre. Bruce Willis stars as a security guard who discovers that he is literally “unbreakable.” Samuel Jackson stars as Elijah Price, who helps Willis’s character to uncover his destiny. Rumors of a sequel have circulated in the decade since Unbreakable‘s release.
- The Science of Sleep (2006): Michel Gondry has made his career on contemporary fantasies, and The Science of Sleep is a great example. An imaginative young man watches the boundaries between dreams and realities slowly dissolve as he starts to fall for his next-door neighbor. There are many great ideas here, such as the “one-second time machine,” which is exactly what it sounds like.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992): Although the show achieved infinitely more success, the Buffy film is a good introduction to the concept: what if the typical valley girl (a horror film stock character) turned around and started fighting back against the forces of darkness? Kristy Swanson stars, along with Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, and Rutger Hauer.
- Big Fish (2003): Tim Burton’s 2003 modern fairy tale sets the story of a father’s and son’s reconciliation against the outlandish tapestry of tall tales woven by the father. These stories include witches, mermaids, giants, and werewolves, but the emotional subtext is very real and should resonate with a large number of viewers.