"it was the first moodysson film I've seen tho he's been recommended by several people, certainly based on this I'm quite interested in his other work."
I've only seen his upbeat ones (Fucking Amal and Show Me Love) but I think that he's so good at manipulating the audience's emotions that I don't dare see the depressing ones.
I don't mean necessarily that he manipulates emotions in a cynical way, I just mean that his films are very emotionally effective - although on reflection I gues part of me does feel a bit as though I'm being lead to what I'm supposed feel which is why I used that phrase.
I watched a good film called City of Pirates (La Ville des Pirates) yesterday. Another extremely surreal film in which the main protagonist Isidore is spirited away to the Isle of Pirates by a peculiarly malevolent boy child who has declared himself her fiancee (after slaughtering his entire family and castrating her lover). There is no city in the film and no pirates either but there is a lot of weirdness involving characters having numerous personalities and strange familial relationships that seem to be in constant flux throughout the film. At one time Isidore's father seems to think that a bouncing white ball is his missing son - and, fair enough, it does come and go at his command so who is to say he is wrong?
The film is disjointed and loses its way at times - possibly a consequence of the fact that the director was apparently writing it as he went along - but overall I think it is more satisfying than other similar films where you feel as though the director is just sticking in weird stuff for the sake of it (say Black Moon for example).
An unusual pinkish filter which is used at times along with the film's constant switching between black and white add to the sense of otherworldliness as do the excellent/insane performances from all the cast, especially the terrifying child.
The director is a South American (Chilean?) called Raoul Ruiz and the only other thing I've seen by him is a short called Colloque de Chiens which is told in stills like La Jette - I'm definitely going to try and find more of his stuff though.