Fantastique: Dreams and Nightmares of French Cinema LE Blu-ray collects six films exploring the rich tradition of French cinéma fantastique, where realism, fantasy, horror, dream logic and the uncanny blur together. Spanning 1930 to 1996, this Radiance limited edition box set presents a wide-ranging journey through surreal visions, strange apparitions, haunted desires and mysterious worlds where ordinary life slips into the fantastical.
 
The collection includes Charles Vanel’s silent-era rarity Dans la nuit, Marcel L’Herbier’s dreamlike La Nuit fantastique, Edmond T. Gréville’s atmospheric Le Diable souffle, Jean Kerchbron’s hypnotic The Golem, Juan Luis Buñuel’s enigmatic The Woman with Red Boots and Raúl Ruiz’s fable-like Three Lives and Only One Death. Together, the films trace decades of French and European cinema that moves between horror, wonder, allegory and poetic unreality.
 
Featuring new restorations, commentaries, interviews, archival television material, a new documentary on French fantastique cinema, improved English subtitles and a 120-page book, Fantastique: Dreams and Nightmares of French Cinema LE offers a major survey of one of cinema’s most mysterious and imaginative traditions.
 
FILMS INCLUDED
 
DANS LA NUIT
A quarry worker is disfigured in a mining accident shortly after his wedding, leaving him hidden behind a haunting mask. Charles Vanel’s sole feature as director blends romance, guilt and surreal mine-set atmosphere in a striking early French fantastique rarity.
 
LA NUIT FANTASTIQUE
A philosophy student working nights at a Paris market dreams of a mysterious woman in white, then follows her on a strange nocturnal adventure through the city. Marcel L’Herbier’s dreamlike wartime fantasy drifts between comedy, romance and dream logic.
 
LE DIABLE SOUFFLE
On a remote island near the Spanish border, a grieving man, a fragile young woman and a mysterious drifter are drawn into a stormy tale of desire, jealousy and broken dreams. Edmond T. Gréville’s atmospheric film uses wind, rain and isolation to create a hallucinatory mood.
 
THE GOLEM
After accidentally swapping hats with a stranger, a man begins to dream himself into another life in the Prague ghetto, where rumours spread of the Golem’s return. Jean Kerchbron’s adaptation of Gustav Meyrink’s novel blends folklore, mysticism and metaphysical fantasy.
 
THE WOMAN WITH RED BOOTS
A successful novelist becomes entangled with a wealthy art patron and the editor she obsesses over, setting off a strange game of control, desire and perception. Juan Luis Buñuel’s enigmatic allegory stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey.
 
THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH
Marcello Mastroianni stars in four strange, interconnected Parisian tales involving lost time, shifting identities, unexpected inheritance and invented lives. Raúl Ruiz’s late-career fantasy turns coincidence and absurdity into an offbeat meditation on fate.
 
directed by: Charles Vanel, Marcel L’Herbier, Edmond T. Gréville, Jean Kerchbron, Juan Luis Buñuel, Raúl Ruiz
starring: Charles Vanel, Sandra Milovanoff, Fernand Gravey, Micheline Presle, Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Marcello Mastroianni
1930–1996 / French, Italian & English / 6-Disc Region AB Blu-ray Limited Edition Box Set