Shuji Terayama (1935-1983), one of Japan's most famous poets and playwrights, first wanted to become a photographer. While still a child he hung around the local photo parlor so often that his mother finally told him that so much picture-taking would make him dwindle away to nothing at all.
The magical properties of the photographic image, still or moving, stayed with him all of his life. In photographs and films as well as on the stage, he created his own kingdom, one based on his own childhood. In plays such as "La Marie Vision," feature films like "Cache-Cache Pastoral" and in the shorter films here collected, he created a place where mothers kill their young and children do indeed dwindle away to nothing at all.
Their world is set in the Taisho Era, one that Terayama was not old enough to remember but here reconstructs: flapper frocks, cloche hats, windup phonographs and the Victor dog, gakusei (student) uniforms, fundoshi (Japanese loin cloths), Japanese wedding kimono, loosened obi. All of this in a chaotic clutter and yet also arranged with a certain sense of style.