Strawberry Mansion

What if dreams were not an intimate sphere secreted from the rest of the world by eyelid curtains and the dome of the skull? Strawberry Mansion thrusts audiences into a Freudian dystopia where the mind's nocturnal wanders are controlled and tampered with. The protagonist is a dream auditor who, while performing his duties, discovers a shocking secret, but is also immersed in an impossible love story. The paranoid thriller repeatedly morphs into a freely surreal drift with a decelerating pace and decaying relationships between cause-and-effect. In a triumph of vision over limitations, the oneiric scenes, although evidently low-budget, are extremely evocative. The whole is reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, though it remains far more optimistic - instead of bitterness, the movie leaves audiences with the sweet taste of strawberry ice cream on the tongue.