Category Archives: fantastique

Two recent brilliant films

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pySXc-6GoU]

[Youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8GjjYHVj-mw]

From the director of Daft Punk’s ‘Around the World’ : The Science of Sleep

Talking body parts

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPUr94zcsaw]

Timmy and the Talking Body Parts

The Residents present a series of very short videos following the adventures of a 9 year old kid named Timmy. Talking body parts are a trope in the fantastique. Examples include Marquis which features extensive conversations of Sade talking to his genitals (and the genitals talking back to him), other fiction which employs the trope of the talking body parts are Naked Lunch (1959) by William S. Burroughs and the The Indiscreet Jewels (1748) by Denis Diderot.

Malpertuis starring Orson Welles

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwOtUe8TBTM&]

The beautiful boy is called Mathieu Carrière. More about this film tomorrow, dear reader. Good night.

Jean-Pierre Bouyxou interviewed

Dailymotion has an interview by Stéphane du Mesnildot with Jean-Pierre Bouyxou –via I’m in a Jess Franco state of mind by Robert Monell.

“Une interview de Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, mémoire vivante de l’underground et de la contre-culture. Il évoque la naissance de sa cinéphilie et l’importance de la revue Midi-Minuit Fantastique. Il nous parle aussi de Jean Boullet, de Kenneth Anger et de “l’adaptation” d’Histoire d’O par ce dernier.”

Summary:

Part 1: Il évoque la naissance de sa cinéphilie et l’importance de la revue Midi-Minuit Fantastique. Il nous parle aussi de Jean Boullet, de Kenneth Anger et de “l’adaptation” d’Histoire d’O par ce dernier.

Part 2: Jean-Pierre nous parle des années 60 et du caractère sulfureux du cinéma fantastique, mais aussi de Guy Debord.

Part 3: Jean-Pierre nous parle de cinéma expérimental, du cinéaste Etienne O’Leary et de la contestation dans les années 60.

Part 4: Jean-Pierre nous parle du peintre et photographe Pierre Molinier et de son film “Satan bouche un coin”. il évoque aussi Noël Godin et les attentats pâtissiers de Georges Le Gloupier.

Part 5: Jean-Pierre nous parle de son amitié avec Jean Rollin, le grand cinéaste de films de vampires français.

Part 7: Jean-Pierre nous parle de ses deux films pornos qu’il a réalisés dans les années 70 : “Entrez vite… vite je mouille” et “Amours collectives”.

Part 8: Jean-Pierre nous parle de la revue Fascination, la bible des amateurs d’érotisme « Belle Epoque ».

I’ve mentioned Bouyxou here.

Carnivalesque damsels

Apparently, Michel Houellebecq is to be found behind the camera these days. He is busy with the film adaptation of Platform (or is it Possiblity of an Island?). Some stills can be found on the website of Fernando Arrabal. Scarcely clad body-painted carnivalesque damsels draw the immediate attention. It has been rumored that Rem Koolhaas would design the decors. Fernando Arrabal is prominently present. –via De Papieren Man

A phantasmal group of huntsmen

The wild hunt (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo

The Wild Hunt was a folk myth prevalent in former times across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground, or just above it. It is often a way to explain thunderstorms.

The devil destroyed all young baobabs

Baobab is the common name of a tree, native to Madagascar, mainland Africa and Australia. The baobab is occasionally known as the devil tree, from African folklore which has it that the devil was mad at the tree because he got stuck in its branches, pulled it out and planted it upside down, making the branches the roots and vice versa. To make sure no future baobab trees would grow, the devil destroyed all young baobabs, that is why there are only fully grown baobabs. The Devil Tree is also the name of a novel by Jerzy Kosinski which I just finished reading and liked a lot. It’s the story of a ‘poor little rich kid’ who travels, goes in group therapy, is initiated into ‘the concern’ (its mysticism reminded me of Iain Banks‘ The Business). This revenge tale is the male equivalent of Fear of Flying (without the literary references). Both were published in 1973 and reflect the American zeitgeist. There is a fine review by Mary Ellin Barrett, Cosmopolitan.

Also, don’t miss Her Private Devil, the tale of the love affair between Kosinski and Laurie Steiber as told by Steiber over at nymag.

The power to unlock any door

Hand of Glory, image sourced here

The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or else, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that “did the deed.”

According to old European beliefs, a candle made of the fat from a malefactor who died on the gallows, virgin wax, and Lapland sesame oil (the candle could only be put out with milk), and the hand having come from the said hanged criminal, lighted and placed in the Hand of Glory (as in a candlestick) would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. The Hand of Glory also purportedly had the power to unlock any door it came across.

The legend is traceable to about 1440, but the name only dates from 1707. It was originally a name for the mandrake root (via French “mandragore” and thus “hand of glory”) that became conflated with the earlier legend. The confusion may have occurred because mandrakes are said to grow beneath the bodies of hanged criminals.