

Description courtesy of Facets:

"Exiled Chilean director Raoul Ruiz offers up three films that showcase his visually intense, highly metaphysical style. In Three Crowns of the Sailor (France, 1983, 117 mins.), a surreal drama based on the Chilo myth of "Caleuche," or "The Ship of the Dead," a sailor spins fantastical yarns of far-off brothels, opium dens, and exotic characters for a young boy who just committed murder. Sacha Vierny (Night and Fog) lends his beautiful black-and-white lensing to the avant-garde staple The Hypothesis of a Stolen Painting (France, 1979, 63 mins.), in which a pompous art collector guides a tour through a fantastic gallery of "living images." As the human artworks begin to smirk and fidget, a new level of spectatorship is introduced into this daring meditation on the relationship between words and images. And in The Suspended Vocation (France, 1978, 96 mins.), based on a Pierre Klossowski novel about his experiences in the seminary during the German Occupation, Ruiz uses a complex parallel narrative to offer a critical examination of the mysteries of the Catholic Church."

The 2-disc set being released by Facets on April 24th includes two 30-minute interviews with Ruiz and a collectible booklet by Ruiz scholar Brnice Reynaud.

[Note: Three Crowns of the Sailor was released individually by Facets last year, while The Suspended Vocation was provided as an extra on the disc of The Hypothesis of a Stolen Painting.]