I went to Four Star Video a couple weeks or so ago and asked about this movie. Unfortunately, someone else was enjoying it so I found other movies to rent. Two or three days later Lewis Peterson, Four Star's owner, called me to say that it had been returned if I were inclined to stop by and grab it.
Four Star is a gem. Long may it run.
Strawberry Mansion concerns one James Preble who travels to out into the country in search of a scofflaw. An elderly woman named Arabella Isadora is delinquent on her dream tax payments and Preble has gone to pay her a visit and do an audit.
It is 2035 and the government taxes dreams. Arabella's oneiric adventures are on ancient videotape and Preble watches them while donning this rather large gizmo that sits on his shoulders and covers his heads. It's like the similar device in Videodrome but more homespun and much less terrifying. As he watches the dreams, a computer overlay notes taxable items and the amount due. In one dream there's a violin which is highlighted as having a value of around $1,500 and a few cents due as tax.
Also in the dreams is a young woman that Preble begins to fancy. Soon the distinction between the real world and Arabella's inner world begins to blur. Things go south when the kindly old woman dies and her villainous son enters the scene which threatens Preble's desire for the carefree woman on the videotapes and yields revelations about Preble's own dreams.
This was a fun, fairy tale-like movie with a very Gilliamesque flavor including the dreams, that Preble is as lot like Brazil's Sam Lowry, and some shade thrown at big business. I really liked the lo-fi aesthetic including the animal costumes. Directors/writers Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley do a nice job of mixing sci-fi elements with more organic, more bucolic ones.
Highly recommended. If you're in the Madison area, rent it at Four Star.
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