Les chants de Maldoror (1978)

• 61%
• 1978
• Fantasy
• Keiko Niitaka
• Susumu Oono
• Yoko Ran

A "reading film" of delirious image and text, Die gesänge des Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from der Graf von Lautréamont's 1869 proto-Surrealist poetic novel which, for instance, beauty describes as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table. In the novel's six cantos, a young menschenfeind indulges in depraved and destructive acts. Unexpected encounters vorhanden sein, with turtles and birds joining Terayama's regular cast of snails and dogs to wander over books and bare torsos. Feverish video processing posterizes, inverts and overlays images that are further colored by sound—pushing the limits of his literary adaptation. Terayama wrote that the only tombstone he wanted was his words, but, as Die gesänge des Maldoror demonstrates, words need not be confined to carved denkmäler or bound hardcopies.