Night Across the Street

An imaginative ode to time, memory, and dreams
A surrealist puzzle about time and memory blending with dreams and flights of imagination, Night Across The Street also reveals quite a bit of Ruiz's own artistic inspirations (novelistic, theatrical, and cinematic).

As I was watching it, I couldn't help recalling a few of the magical realist writers from Latin America (from Cuba and Argentina primarily) that I've read, as well as some of the European Surrealist, Avante Garde, and Baroque writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from France, Spain, and Italy (Pirandello is also present).

As for cinema, Bunuel and Fellini, even Almodovar (and the Soap Opera) are there to some extent, as is a film like Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York.

At its most literal, Night Across The Street is about the "imaginative" mind of an elderly man, Don Celso (perhaps going senile toward the end of his life). Past, present, and future, memory, fantasy, and dreams all seem to fuse together for him under...

Raul Ruiz's elegant farewell to cinema
NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET is a deeply heartfelt, tender farewell to cinema from one of its greatest visionaries. NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET eschews traditional narrative for dream logic, and is buoyed by its tremendous imagination and warm-hearted humor. Those who aren't already acquainted with Ruiz's work will probably struggle to appreciate it, but for the initiated, this is a cinema landmark.

very good
Human and deep in soul. Raoul Ruiz is a genius. I intend see the other pictures he made. Retirement is really a crisis.

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