Born in Flames + Songs of Maldoror

Born in Flames + Songs of Maldoror

The Songs of Maldoror

The Songs of Maldoror

(Marudororu no uta)

Shūji Terayama

  • 1977
  • Japan
  • Fantasy / Experimental
  • 30mn
  • Color
In this hallucinatory poetic trip, Terayama draws on the substance of Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), a precursor of surrealism, to invent its filmic equivalent. The screen becomes a living page: across the skin of the actors from his Tenjō Sajiki company crawl turtles, snails, and other animals. Lautréamont’s words not only make sense: they become sensuous graphics, carnal presences caressing the characters’ bodies. The filmmaker couldn’t have paid a more beautiful tribute to the masterpiece than with this marvelous and enigmatic collage.

Credits

  • With : Keiko Niitaka, Susumu Oono, Yoko Ran, Toshihiko Hino, Chiaki Ishii...
  • Screenplay : Shūji Terayama
  • Photography : Tatsuo Suzuki
  • Editing : Sachiko Ikeda
  • Music by : Akio Suzuki
  • Production : Akinori Konishi, Eiko Kûjô

Rebeka Warrior

I discovered Japanese experimental, post-punk and avant-garde cinema when I was a teenager thanks to a song by Bérurier Noir called “L'Empereur Tomato Ketchup”, which was also a film by Terayama. For L'Étrange Festival, I’ve chosen two short films by this director, The Cage and The Songs of Maldoror. The first one evokes the concept of time, which was my thesis subject at the Beaux-Arts and the second one, inspired by the eponymous poetic pre-surrealist novel by the Comte de Lautréamont, reflects my love for poetry.
Born in Flames

Born in Flames

Lizzie Borden

  • 1983
  • USA
  • Dystopian drama
  • 1h19mn
  • Original version with French subtitles
  • Color
New York. In a not too distant future, ten years after the “social democratic liberation war”, outraged by male domination and the role imposed on them by society, groups of women get organized to fight back.
It can come as a surprise that Lizzie Borden waited so long for recognition. But her work was way ahead of its time, seeing how strongly it resonates today. Too often reduced to a scifi movie, Born in Flames is most of all an extraordinary docufiction depicting the utopia of a feminist revolution with such a sense of reality that we might, oblivious of any historical context, believe it to be authentic. A documentary from the future? A blazing political manifesto, the film ends on an image that history has anointed with striking and unsettling power.

Credits

  • With : Honey, Adele Bartei, Jean Satterfield, Florynce Kennedy, Kathryn Bigelow...
  • Screenplay : Lizzie Borden
  • Photography : Ed Bowes, Al Santana
  • Editing : Lizzie Borden
  • Music by : The Bloods, Ibis, The Red Crayola
  • Production : Lizzie Borden

Rebeka Warrior

This science-fiction film explores racism, sexism and hetero-sexism in an alternative democratic socialist America. The movie presents women who have different ideas on how sexism must be fought; though their opinions differ, they all believe it’s women’s responsibility to take action, because the government ignores them and won’t intervene. Born in Flames depicts a world impregnated by violence towards women and underlines the fact that they are the most affected by unemployment and government oppression. In the film women unite to have a stronger impact. Totally Warrior.

Screenings

08/09 • 21h45 • Screen 300

Presented by Rebeka Warrior