Keiko Niitaka

The documentary to find the "true Shuji Terayama".

Su-e (Mayumi Ogawa) y su primo Sutekichi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), quieren vivir juntos, pero su padre les prohibe tener contacto sexual. Al igual que otros lugareños, creen que si tienen hijos primos juntos, los niños sufrirán graves defectos de nacimiento. Su remedio es escapar con Su-e. Después de algún tiempo transcurrido, los dos hacen el camino de regreso a la aldea, pero para entonces Sutekichi sufrirá los efectos de sus acciones.

This is Shuji Terayama memorial performance from 1983.

Secuela espiritual de "La historia de O". “Les Fruits de la Passion” es un melodrama erótico ambientado en el Hong Kong de los años 20. Kinski, un europeo decadente con negocios en la ciudad, envía a su mujer a un burdel para profundizar en su amor física y espiritualmente. El tema de la sumisión, del sufrimiento y la ofensa que aparecían en la cinta de 1975 son retomados aquí, en cuyo burdel de fantasía se muestran viñetas de tortura, fetichismo y perversiones diversas. “O” debe renunciar a cualquier deseo para amar completamente a Sir Stephen, quien se deleita martirizándola mostrándole como ama también a otra mujer, Nathalie, interpretada por Arielle Dombasle. El trío se rompe cuando un cuarto personaje, un joven que envía flores a la bella encarcelada, se introduce entre la pareja protagonista para hacer suya a “O”.

Película compuesta por tres historias. En la primera, un náufrago llega a una isla paradisíaca y encuentra una mujer semidesnuda, juguetona y complaciente. En la segunda, un adolescente intenta recordar la letra de una canción de cuna, lo cual le conduce a fantasías sexuales y edípicas. En la tercera, un hombre rico en el París del siglo XIX contrata a una prostituta por una sola noche.

Akira is haunted by a "bouncing ball" song that he remembers his mother singing when he was a small child, and now on the verge of a sexually active adulthood, he wants to find the origins of the song. The young man ostensibly wanders into a time-warp in which aspects from his childhood and adulthood mix together. In this never-never land he comes across a beautiful woman/witch who is lost inside the labyrinth of her mansion, just as the young man is lost in the labyrinth of time — and on some levels, perhaps the labyrinth of his subconscious.

Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer's phantasmagoric folk-psych-symph-prog-rock opera. Historical Tenjo Sajiki performance from 1978.

Stage performance by the Tenjo Sajiki troupe.

In the midst of a match, a successful boxer - Hayato, has had enough of the sport. He lets himself get knocked, quits boxing, leaving his wife and start living alone with his mangy dog. One day a young mediocre boxer knocks at the door and wants to be Hayatos apprentice.

As a family goes on with their day, the shadows on their walls lead a completely different life.

In this Borgesian satire on knowledge and technology, bibliophilic desire leads to the construction of a pedal-powered reading machine. Resembling a combination of gymnastic contraption, printing press and early cinematic apparatus, the machine’s purpose remains ambiguous. And like this machine, Terayama’s film connects his work in poetry, motion picture and graphic design by weaving together printed and projected, still and moving images.

A “reading film” of delirious image and text, Les chants de Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from Comte de Lautréamont’s 1869 proto-Surrealist poetic novel which, for instance, describes beauty as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table. In the novel’s six cantos, a young misanthrope indulges in depraved and destructive acts. Unexpected encounters abound, 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 Les chants de Maldoror demonstrates, words need not be confined to carved monuments or bound hardcopies.

An experimental short featuring people and nails.

The smallpox virus has created its own unique atmosphere in Terayama’s film where the skin of a bandaged adolescent and the surface of the filmic image are subjected to a bizarre ‘disturbance’ as snails cross the screen and nails are hammered into the skull of the ailing patient. Illness in this film is as much a psychic entity as a physical one and manifests itself in an array of theatrical tableaux from grotesque women rigorously brushing their teeth to a snooker game where the players in white face makeup behave like automata. A Tale of Smallpox uses a medical theme to chart the traumatic dream life of Terayama’s times, evincing deep-rooted concerns in the Japanese national psyche that hark back to the upheaval of Meiji modernisation and the devastation of World War Two.

Un chico decide escapar de su casa con la mujer de su vecino porque está enamorado de ella.

A dreamlike portrayal of a hangover after a decadent party.

After going to prison for killing the boss of the Kanno gang, Seji Iwahashi (Tatsuya Nakadai) gets released early -- only to find that his former gang has merged with the Kannos. But with bitter resentments lingering on both sides, how long will it be before the bloodshed begins anew? Set in 1926 Japan, this serpentine crime thriller from director Hideo Gosha also stars Toshio Kurosawa and Isao Natsuyagi as Iwahashi's closest ally.

Shuji Terayama debutó como director con este film sobre la alienación y el ansia por una revolución sociopolítica por parte de la contracultura juvenil de los 60. A través de imágenes fragmentarias el director nos narra la incertidumbre y el caos en los que se ve sumido un joven y su familia disfuncional.

In a Japanese colony, children overthrow their parental guardians and attempt to form a new society. Their plan spirals out of control and they are soon lost in a web of sexual deviation and violence.

Pinku from 1967.

Pinku from 1965.

A doctor, gynecologist, discover the corpse of his wife. His nurse advises to him to declare her death a simple heart attack, to clear himself without the slightest doubt. He refuses and calls the police force there. The interrogation of the doctor, then other witnesses, slowly reveals the truth of her demise…