Surreal, bizarre and beautifully strange dream-like experience. A perfect adaption from the delirious and cloudy taste of a dream, to a marvellous looking picture on the working screen. The wonderful- graphical aestetics and imagery makes this movie a fantasticle one, but it feels like someone else's personal exploration and nothing more. Its enigmatic, and what is in the creator's mind is the division and confusion of meaning. Perhaps he is trying to force something terrifying, or magical.
4 Reviews
Psychological fever-dream.
punishmentpark22 July 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Quite 'nice', while a lot of the time utterly confusing. About a young man who is searching for a particular song, or maybe his father, or maybe his true self? He encounters many figures and places, where there are many contrasts: his diligent mother versus a disturbed prostitute, a (n endless) ocean versus an (endless) desert, a young boy versus a grown man, but also, there are lots of balls (wich apparently resemble pregnancy stones, some with lots of string around them), a long red string that turns up everywhere (I assume this is a Biblical reference?) and many female, male and childlike figures that begin to haunt the boy/man. It all culminates in a scene where he is chasing mad figures with a sword, but finally he ends up in the desert watching children play in the distance...
The use of children's tunes versus the ominous heavy rock (another contrast) reminded me of Argento's horror films, even if there isn't a drop of blood spilt here. This is certainly one to watch again (and again and again, I gather), I'm looking forward to it already.
A big 8 out of 10 for now - edit- a small 9 out of 10 should work as well.
The use of children's tunes versus the ominous heavy rock (another contrast) reminded me of Argento's horror films, even if there isn't a drop of blood spilt here. This is certainly one to watch again (and again and again, I gather), I'm looking forward to it already.
A big 8 out of 10 for now - edit- a small 9 out of 10 should work as well.
Grass Labyrinth (1983)
mevmijaumau1 February 2015
A near-masterpiece from the legendary Japanese avant-garde artist Shuji Terayama, 40 minutes long and originally included in a French movie package Private Collections, the other two films of which were directed by Walerian Borowczyk and Just Jaeckin. Grass Labyrinth, apart from featuring cult comedy director Juzo Itami in a small role, is also blessed with J. A. Saezer's lullabyish soundtrack which sometimes also consists of heartbeats played along with a recording of someone breathing.
Grass Labyrinth is, like most of Terayama's works, self-reflective and filled with many references to his childhood. Leitmotifs from his other films are present here as well, such as windmills, bridal headdresses worn by his overprotective mother, the attractive/nymphomaniac neighboring girl whom the protagonist's mother forbids him to see, Oedipal complex, the father who's also a naval officer, circus freaks, the protagonist getting forcefully "seduced" by a woman, etc. It has the most similarities to his movie Pastoral: To Die in the Country, so I guess you could call this one Pastoral 2.0.
The protagonist in this movie travels the land to find the lyrics to a lullaby his mother may have sang to him. Of course, knowing Terayama, this journey becomes a psycho-sexual, surreal voyage through space and time filled with eroticism, symbolism and strange landscapes. All of this culminates in the final, adrenaline-ridden scene where the hero faces off against aforementioned freaks.
Grass Labyrinth is ultimately a movie with some unforgettable imagery; round "pregnancy stones" which turn sterile women fertile, a man fondling a naked woman with a calligraphed body on a seashore, the hero watching children play in a barren desert. I'd call it a film of its kind, but Terayama can produce much weirder stuff, so this is where I end things.
Grass Labyrinth is, like most of Terayama's works, self-reflective and filled with many references to his childhood. Leitmotifs from his other films are present here as well, such as windmills, bridal headdresses worn by his overprotective mother, the attractive/nymphomaniac neighboring girl whom the protagonist's mother forbids him to see, Oedipal complex, the father who's also a naval officer, circus freaks, the protagonist getting forcefully "seduced" by a woman, etc. It has the most similarities to his movie Pastoral: To Die in the Country, so I guess you could call this one Pastoral 2.0.
The protagonist in this movie travels the land to find the lyrics to a lullaby his mother may have sang to him. Of course, knowing Terayama, this journey becomes a psycho-sexual, surreal voyage through space and time filled with eroticism, symbolism and strange landscapes. All of this culminates in the final, adrenaline-ridden scene where the hero faces off against aforementioned freaks.
Grass Labyrinth is ultimately a movie with some unforgettable imagery; round "pregnancy stones" which turn sterile women fertile, a man fondling a naked woman with a calligraphed body on a seashore, the hero watching children play in a barren desert. I'd call it a film of its kind, but Terayama can produce much weirder stuff, so this is where I end things.
Slightly disappointing
Horst_In_Translation10 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Kusa-meikyû" or "Grass Labyrinth" is a Japanese/French co-production from 1979, so this one will have its 40th anniversary soon and make sure you got subtitles for it unless you are fluent in Japanese. This is perhaps among the more known works by director Shûji Terayama and he is also part of the writing duo who adapted this one. It runs for 40 minutes and tells the story of a man looking for a peculiar lullaby and we follow him on his journey, on which he finds a lot more than he expected. There is nudity in here, sex and violence too, so unsurprisingly this is only for grown-ups. But even these may find it a bit difficult to really warm up to this tale. I must say that neither story nor acting impressed me much. This is a film that certainly is a bit on the "shocking for the sake of it" side and I am baffled by some calling it even a masterpiece. Even the one area where I really expected it to deliver, namely the atmospheric side was not on a level that convinced me and I am usually a sucked for Asian(-themed) films. There is something fascinating about these most of the time. As for this one here, not so much. It's not a failure and has an okay moment here and there, but as a whole I really did not feel the appeal also because it has an aura of pretense to it. So it's a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
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