PARATHEATRICAL RESEARCH and VERTICAL POOL
presents


When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.


(2008; 111 min. USA.)

an ANTERO ALLI film

 


NO SCREENINGS SCHEDULED AT THIS TIME.
PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER (OR IF YOU WISH,
YOU CAN PURCHASE THIS FILM ON DVD.
)

(this site updated OCT. 30)





A HYPNOGOGIC DRAMA

A theatre troupe camps out in a forest to enact their vision of French Surrealist Antonin Artaud's magic theatre of ghosts, gods and spirits. During their forest experiment Alex, their director (Antero Alli), is haunted by a reoccurring nightmare where Artaud appears and mocks his ambitions. With his sanity pushed to its outer limits, Alex visits a psychologist and undergoes hypnosis to find the source of his disturbance.

>>THE TRAILER (3 minutes)
>> EXCERPT FROM THE FILM (4 minutes)

"Cinema is a drug. Some movies lull us to sleep like tranquilizers while others jack us up like triple espressos. The Invisible Forest is a 100% organic, user-friendly hallucinogen".-- Antero Alli

 


REVIEWS, CAST & CREW, STILLS, MEDIA, ARTAUD

 

 


JAMES L. WAGNER as "Hermes, the Dream Ego "

"Forests embody threshold spaces where we encounter the spirits of nature as well as ghosts of the psychic, para-spiritual world. It is here in the forest that Alli’s dreamstory begins and winds itself through a rich tapestry of labyrinthine dreams within dreams that eventually carry us through to the shattering and regenerative conclusion of Alli’s cinematic opus." - from the REVIEW by Cedrus Monte, Jungian Analyst, Zurich Switzerland.

CAST, CREW & SCREENING HISTORY, STILLS, MEDIA


ANTERO ALLI as "Alex"

"The onscreen presence of Alli makes this film particularly special...his ALEX is enigmatic, sardonic, arrogant, insightful, joyful—an unpretentious but still portentous portrait of the sort of irascible, multidimensional artist who is not content to make myths but to provoke the nameless forces behind myth, and to bid them intrude." -- from the REVIEW by Erik Davis, author, "TechGnosis"

FILMMAKER INTERVIEW
by Juanita Benedicto. April 29, '08.

 

ANTONIN ARTAUD (1896 - 1948)
"If our life lacks a constant magic, it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in consideration of their imagined form instead of being impelled by their force. No matter how loudly we clamor for magic in our lives, we are really afraid of pursuing an existence entirely under its influence and sign." -- Antonin Artaud




Director's Blog, Filmography, DVD, Contacts, Music

 

 




What may be Alli's most delirious picture to watch is also his most difficult story to follow, and at times the narrative seemed to spiral out of control. On the other hand, the spiral takes us places an ordinary, scripted story might avoid, even when the visual effects cease. In particular, the improvised dialogues between Alli and Garret Dailey, as his psychiatrist "Philip K. Brodrique," are naturalistic, funny, frightening ...the best acting I've seen in Alli's oeuvre." -- from the REVIEW by Jesse Walker

 

DIRECTOR'S BLOG
behind the scenes; updated 6/24/08

VISION STATEMENT
"why i make films"

FILMOGRAPHY
completed works; w/trailers

ANTERO @ I.M.Db
Internet Movie Database

PRODUCER BIOS
Sylvi Alli and Antero Alli

>> BUY THE DVD<<
only from the filmmaker

 

VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS
PO BOX 7518 Berkeley CA USA 94707
vox: (510) 464-4640
e-mail the director

Vertical Pool Site Map

 

MP3 "DYING STAR "
from the CD, A Hundred Birds by Sylvi Alli
as featured in the film, "The Invisible Forest"