O Dreamland

It is 1953. Members of the working class rush off to Dreamland Amusement Park in the English coastal town of Margate, where they gape at a show featuring torture devices, a lion pacing back and forth in a undersized cage, a ventriloquist's dummy dominating the scene with his sinister chuckle, and a dwarf praises his wares: "The dreams I dream are yours to see. Over there in reality." Director Lindsay Anderson interviews nobody, but uses his 16mm camera to record the entertainment and the people who are drawn to it, often in close-up. He records the visitors' facial expressions, kids eating sweets, and bored bottoms on barstools. The result is an impressionistic portrait of vapid entertainment, enhanced by a soundtrack that consists of the booming sounds of the amusement park and the constant, hollow cackle. Anderson released O Dreamland in 1956 as one of the first products of the Free Cinema movement, founded by Anderson and other filmmakers to free themselves from the strict rules of the documentary genre. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)