Les chants de Maldoror

A reading film of delirious image and text Les chants de Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from Comte de Lautréamonts 1869 protoSurrealist poetic novel which for instance describes beauty as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table In the novels six cantos a young misanthrope indulges in depraved and destructive acts Unexpected encounters abound with turtles and birds joining Terayamas 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 soundpushing the limits of his literary adaptation Terayama wrote that the only tombstone he wanted was his words but as Les chants de Maldoror demonstrates words need not be confined to carved monuments or bound hardcopies