Sunday, May 30, 2010

Day 15: Death Laid an Egg

This is going to be a short post.  Mainly for the reason that I don't know what the fuck I just watched.

I had been told Death Laid an Egg was strange.  But boy I didn't realize what I was in for when I popped this bad boy into my player.


So we start off with an opening credits sequence that looks like footage of the inside of a human body. Remember in Look Who's Talking where we're shown Kirstie Alley's ovulating lady parts from the inside as the little swimmers find their way to the egg?  Think that.  But more psychedelic.

We then cut to a delirious sequence in a hotel, as a man prepares to commit suicide.  A couple are fooling around in another room, while a young man tries to listen to them.  Soon the couple's canoodling turns into terror as the man slashes up the woman.

Then we get to the main characters, who run a chicken farm.  They just let their workers go because they figured out how to run things by machine.  The main three are also in a love triangle.

That's honestly all I'm gonna leave you with in terms of plot.

Because that's all I understood.

While all the giallo ingredients are still there, this is really an art film in every sense.  A giallo for David Lynch fans, if you will.

The entire thing plays like a fever dream, a series of surreal sequences barely strung together by any semblance of a plot.

And the strange thing is...I can't wait to see this again.

Like Donnie Darko and Mulholland Dr., Death Laid An Egg is the rare film I want to investigate further with repeat viewings.

Once I finish the month, I'm considering going on one last giallo binge with a day long (two day if I manage to get two off in a row) marathon before watching my palette cleanser and calling it a day.  If I do, this most certainly be revisited.

Later.
-Justin

4 comments:

  1. rilly, set aside the inexplicables (the impossible to summarize giallos, not the forthcoming summer blockbuster from stallone), and we'll commit a fifth of liquor at the end of this to watching them back to back and figuring out a system for interpreting them.

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  2. There we go. Death Laid an Egg, Footprints, Phenomena, and I can grab In The Folds of the Flesh from Naro.

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  3. Great pics of Ewa Aulin! I wonder where she is today...
    She's from my hometown. After giving up her acting career in the early/mid-70s, she just disappeared. I asked Janet Agren (who's from the same town), but she hasn't heard from her in 35 years or so.

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