Сборник короткометражек культового японского авангардиста от кинематографа Тераяма Сюдзи, состоящий из 4 DVD дисков под общим названием "Томатный Кетчуп Императора" - по названию самого известного и сюрного его кинокреатива. Наконец то, через 40 лет после его создания, Кетчуп перевели на русский и одна из двух версий, 27-минутная с более качественной картинкой, имеет субтитры. О содержательной части Томатного Кетчупа существует интересная и познавательная диссертация, на английском, поэтому интересующимся творчеством этого мэтра японского авангарда рекомендую её изучить.
В этом издании представлены фильмы Тераямы Сюдзи 1962-1977 годов.
JP. 寺山修司実験映像ワールド コンプリートBOX [1,000セット限定生産] / 邦画
20世紀の映像詩人・寺山修司が手掛けたシュールでアヴァンギャルドな映像作品集の4枚組BOX。 現存する最初の映画『檻囚』、書物を映画に翻訳し直し、「読む映像」を試みた『マルロドールの歌』ほか、全15作品を収録。
かわなかのぶひろ・鈴木達夫・萩原朔美・森崎偏陸によるオーディオコメンタリー、寺山修司主演短編「記憶のカタログ」
EN. Shūji Terayama (寺山 修司 Terayama Shūji, December 10, 1935 – May 4, 1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. Many critics view him as one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He has been cited as an influence on various Japanese filmmakers from the 1970s onward.
THE EXPERIMENTAL IMAGE WORLD OF SHUJI TERAYAMA, DVD four-volume box set. Tokyo: Daguerreo Press, Inc./Image Forum Video, 2006, color/monochrome, English subtitles, bilingual menu, audio commentaries (Japanese only) by Nobuhiro Kawanaka, Tatsuo Suzuki, Sakumi Hagiwara and Henriku Morisaki, 346 min.
In this edition presents the films Terayama Shūji 1962-1977.
INFO:
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.
Terayama has elsewhere written that it is not the camera's ability to tell the truth that is interesting, but it is its ability to lie. He can make us truly believe in this claustrophobic, closed, dead world, where we are forced voyeurs. This four-DVD set of almost all of his shorter films (the very first, "Catology," has been lost for years) drags us into his disturbing kingdom -- a coherent and forceful expression of an imagination, dreamlike but startlingly real.
The earliest of these short films, "The Cage" (1964-69), introduces some of the recurring images: clocks, father-figures in black capes, body-builders. "Butterfly" (1974) reflects early memories -- shadows, people walking in front of the screen. (When a boy, Terayama used to sleep under the screen of a local movie theater and awake to gigantic images above him, and the shadows of viewers in front of the projector.)
In "Laura" (1974), movie memories turn self-referential. Two strippers on the screen start talking back to the audience: "Hey, you in the front row, stop it. Oh, we know what kind of people come to see experimental films!" The "Movie Guide for Young People" uses three screens and offers various transgressions -- including one actor who relieves himself on us (i.e. the camera lens).
"Labyrinth" (1975) takes us outside: two men trying to transport an entire doorway, complete with door. The door appears again in "Smallpox Story," which also features nails being driven into skulls. "Der Prozess," the last of the 1975 films, is an extended (34 min.) love scene that could probably not be shown in theaters even now.
"Father" is a portrait of his missing parent (killed in the Pacific War), and "The Eraser" (both 1977 films) includes a number of Terayama-like fetishes -- old photos erased or torn up, or stitched together. "Isumboshi" features the love-life of a dwarf, and "Shadow Film" is just that, shadows on the screen.
There are several more of these short films and there are two versions of the infamous "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" (1970). This film is about children in revolt. Like the kids in Jean Vigo's "Zero de Conduit," they take over and (in the words of Amos Vogel in "Film as a Subversive Art") "condemn their parents to death for depriving them of self-expression and sexual freedom." There is a lot of nudity and much simulated sex -- though killing a chicken on camera is perhaps the most distressful of the scenes.
The film has been often banned and the 75-minute original (here included) exists only as single 16-mm print. Terayama made a shortened version (27 min., here included) and there is an even shorter extract, the 12-min. "Jan-Ken-Po War" also included in this set.
Finally there is a compilation film, "Catalogue of Memory" (1977) by Michi Tanaka, a close associate of Terayama's, one in which Terayama himself appears.
The package is quite foreigner-friendly. The menu is bilingual, and English subtitles are provided whenever the text is on the sound track. When the text is a part of the image, however, as in "Les Chants de Maldoror," there is no translation. You can also buy these DVDs singly.
That the collection is sometimes upsetting is to be expected -- it was intended to be. Terayama is not only the sleeping child, he is also the sinister magician and through the magic of film he reigns over his embattled kingdom.
It is embattled because it is a vision of childhood with all the terror and cruelty retained, and because mother was right: If you take too many pictures you dwindle away. This dwindling process is called maturity. When you have entirely evaporated you are an adult.
Language: Japanese.

DVD-1:
The Cage, 1962-69.
Tomato Kechappu Kōtei / Emperor Tomato Ketchup, 1971. (Subtitles: English, Russian).
The War Of Jan-Ken-Pon, 1971,
Butterfly, 1974.
Laura, 1974.

DVD-2:
Movie Guide For Young People, 1974.
A Tale Of Labyrinth, 1975.
A Tale Of Smallpox, 1975.
Der prozess, 1975.

DVD-3:
The Rubber, 1977.
Les Chants De Maldoror, 1977.
Essun Bosi Wo Kujutusuru Kokoromi, 1977.
Shadow Film: A Woman With Two Heads, 1977.
The Reading Machine, 1977.
Father, 1977.

DVD-4:
Tomato Kechappu Kōtei / Emperor Tomato Ketchup, 1971, Long version, 72 min.
Catalogue Of Memory. (Director: Michi Tanaka. Appearance: Shūji Terayama).
Download 寺山 修司 / Shūji Terayama. Video collection of avant-garde:
DVD-1
DVD-2
DVD-3
DVD-4
Download Dissertation about Tomato Kechappu Kōtei / Emperor Tomato Ketchup (In English).