Den-en ni shisu

Mesmerizing and stunning in every possible way.. A Masterpiece, folks. One of the greatest cinematic experiences i've ever had.

Not only surrealism but in general the overall balance of the film and the absurdity of the cinematography made all so natural, made the film what it is. So ahead of its time a simple treasure for the film community.

Few films are as audacious and unrelentingly imaginative as this one. Set in a dreamlike rural Japan, the story starts out to be about an adolescent boy's attempt to escape his overprotective mother and then surprisingly becomes a filmmakers desire to confront his own elaborated creation. There is also an effort to reconcile the individual with the collective or old and new Japan through this parade of emblematic images. Gossiping women wear sinister eye patches. An outcast simple-minded woman drowns her own baby and later returns as a sophisticated prostitute. A circus fat lady yearns to have her fake body inflated by a dwarf. Curious and astounding scenes abound, all contributing to an overwhelming experience of a creative mind interrogating itself.

Terayama's mastery of the image is inarguable. His compositions - kaleidoscopic, supersaturated, overpowering - are an integral part of his films' unique emotional landscape. He could almost be described as a director of Japanese kink, were his films not so deeply philosophical, cerebral and achingly emotional.

Here, Terayama paints his childhood in broad strokes, then proceeds to shake his head as if disappointed at the results; his images are an embellishment, he concedes, and the rest of the film delves more deeply into the metaphysical as he literally steps foot into his childhood to try to understand it and, if possible, change it, if only to find out what will happen if he does.

The film is charged with budding eroticism, a portrait of an adolescent's confusion juxtaposed with a man's midlife existentialism. Terayama was a fascinating man and he's putting his soul on display in this film, his own poetry woven through it as his memories ring with the surreal and come across more coherently as feelings than as literal moments. The figures of his childhood walk larger than life until, finally, the thin walls of memory come crashing down and the past is forsaken in favour of an urban present.

In what may or may not be an auto-biography, Terayama explores his past and the relationship we have with our memories, in a grotesque serie of poetic symbolism, bizarre surrealism, haikus, tragic tales of love and innocence, beautiful scenery and interesting cinematography, all wrapped in a self-referential, intellectually thought-provoking exploration of how our lives are affected by our childhood memories. A magnificent balance between indulgent surrealism and thoughtful objectivism, while still not being really experimental.