THE INVENTION OF MOREL

Before LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD baffled and enthralled cinemagoers worldwide, before a rag-tag group of castaways were stranded in LOST, an Argentine writer published a slender volume that would intrigue and inspire poets and filmmakers for the next eighty years. Its title: THE INVENTION OF MOREL.

In Emidio Greco’s stylish adaptation of Adolfo Bioy Casares' celebrated novel, a refugee washes up on the shore of a strange and barren island. At the far end lies an enigmatic “museum,” or rather a beautiful Art Deco mansion, the purpose of which remains unknown. But the island isn’t as deserted as the visitor had assumed—an enigmatic group of vacationers clad in 1920s getup occasionally appear. Are they real, the hallucinations of a delirious and starving man, or is there some other answer to their mysterious presence? The island's secret, both horrifying and beguiling, distills the power of cinema and suggests that our past may be the strangest land of all.