It isn't a secret to anyone that nothing can inspire better than a good movie. And let's not talk about big Hollywood blockbusters for a minute... Nothing against, indeed, there are some classics we shouldn't ignore like for instance, "James Bond" (1962-2021) or "The Godfather" (1972). 

But, let's step out of the mainstream bubble just for a split second. What do we see? Elegant black-and-white movies that are longer, quieter and also, deeper. In a sense that they do not only focus on the story but go beyond this, unveiling metaphors in the details of clothing and unnoticeable gestures. Maybe we should accept that there isn't even a clear storyline. These movies have no beginning, no climax and usually, they gift us with a very puzzling ending. But isn't there a beauty in this?

"What was the movie about again?" - you question yourself. The answer won't pop up easily. Every spectator should be able to come up with an individual interpretation and the director permits this. The movie probably has been created with a specific idea in mind, but it doesn't erase myriads of other possible meanings to it. Let's take as an example Andrei Tarkovsky's "Nostalghia". The movie is indeed about feeling homesick, but it is also about longing for the forgotten past and also about the infinite complexity of the human soul. And it's absolutely acceptable that it can mean something different to you. Besides, your analysis is more than welcome.

The three movies we are suggesting to you today are not just any regular movies, as you understood from the aforementioned paragraph. They are real art pieces, moving photographs and a storehouse of countless ideas, dreams and inspiration. Ready?

"The Seventh Seal" (1957) | Ingmar Bergman

Suitable for: Medieval art lovers, appreciators of HHH (humorous, humble and haunting) movies, portraiture photographers and fashion designers.

"The Seventh Seal" can seem like a silent film but it isn't one. It's a quiet movie that highlights the inner conversation with the self about the meaning of life and also, the meaning of death, the existence of God and acceptance of the daily insanity. Its black-and-white scenes inspired a lot of modern film directors like David Fincher - who often worked with the dark and disturbing areas of the human psyche, Woody Allen - a big fan of dark humour and sarcasm, Francis Ford Coppola - an explorer of human condition and admirer of simplicity and art-history references in his movies.

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”

"Nostalghia" (1983) | Andrei Tarkovsky

Suitable for: everyone who is going through an existential crisis or simply Camus, Sartre and Dostoyevsky fans, Italian architecture lovers, landscape and nature photographers.

"Nostalghia is closer to a poem than a movie, the type of poem that combines human spirituality with the power of nature. With the rain and destroyed cathedrals' visuals, melodic prayers, sounds of the gusts of wind and the appearance of exquisite and talented actors Domiziana Giordano and Oleg Yankovsky, "Nostalghia" became one of the most iconic movies made by Andrei Tarkovsky. It's about homesickness, longing for the past, destroyed dreams, but also, according to the director himself: "about the particular state of mind which assails Russians who are far from their native land.

"We don't know what madness is. They're troublesome, inconvenient, we refuse to understand them. But they're certainly closer to the truth."

"Last Year in Marienbad" (1961) | Alain Resnais

Suitable for: photographers looking for unusual geometrical compositions, architects looking for luxurious baroque style inspiration

If you are a fan of "Inception" (2010) by Christopher Nolan, you might find out where it takes its origins. "Last Year in Marienbad" isn't simply a movie, but a dream within a dream, a corridor of mirrors where you lose yourself. It's a luxurious dark fairy-tale that bewilders our imagination and confuses our mind just like Maurits Cornelis Escher's (1898-1972) paintings do.

"I walk on, once again, down these corridors, through these halls, these galleries, in this structure of another century, this enormous, luxurious, baroque, lugubrious hotel, where corridors succeed endless corridors—silent deserted corridors overloaded with a dim, cold ornamentation of woodwork, stucco, moldings, marble, black mirrors, dark paintings, columns, heavy hangings, sculptured door frames, series of doorways, galleries, transverse corridors that open in turn on empty salons, rooms overloaded with an ornamentation from another century…"