I’m relieved to hear Olivier Smolders say in this DVD’s bonus features that Black Night is intentionally dreamlike. It makes all the surreal imagery and elliptical story a lot easier to handle. His exquisite expressionism recalls several great visionaries. The obsessive attention to the secret lives of objects will please any Brothers Quay fan. The stage curtains bookending the film, doppelgangers and subconscious logic bring to mind David Lynch’s weirder work. The mingling of insects, sickness and sex is pure David Cronenberg. The confusing environment and never-ending night seem borrowed from Alex Proyas‘ Dark City. The anachronistic mix of Victorian and modern set dressing could be borrowed from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. The paranoid atmosphere and transmogrifications are basic Kafka. It’s strange to say that a movie with such abundant references is utterly unique, but I’m at a loss for any other way to describe it without attempting a thorough analysis of the strange plot. And anyway, each time I see it I have a different idea of what it’s about. It truly feels like a dream captured on film and has haunted me well into my nightmares.

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