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Apocryphally Weird

57*. HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND (1978)

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Delírios de um Anormal

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“…there’s this spiritist center in Bahia that summons an Exu, or Zé do Caixão spirit. I’ve been to these places, incognito of course, wearing sunglasses, hiding my nails, the whole deal. And then someone channels Zé do Caixão, claiming it’s me. There’s this narrative that Zé do Caixão was already a spirit and I just summoned him. I pay them homage in this film. I leave it up to the viewers to decide for themselves. Is he real?”– on the commentary track to Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

DIRECTED BY: José Mojica Marins

FEATURING: José Mojica Marins, Jorge Peres, Magna Miller

PLOT: Psychiatrist Hamilton has terrible nightmares where he believes Coffin Joe is coming to take his wife away to use her to breed his offspring. His concerned colleagues call in José Mojica Marins, the creator of the Coffin Joe character, to convince him that the character is fictional and all in his imagination. The cure works; or does it?

hallucinations of a deranged mind (1978) still

BACKGROUND:

  • Zé do Caixão (Anglicized as “Coffin Joe”) was a character created and portrayed by low-budget Brazilian filmmaker José Mojica Marins. Beginning in the late 60s, Coffin Joe appeared in a trilogy of canonical feature films, also appearing in Marins’ work in dream sequences, host segments, personal appearances, his own line of comic books, and so on. The character is sadistic, but ultimately more amoral than evil; he disdains religion and the supernatural, and quests eternally to find the perfect “superior” woman to breed with so he can sire superhuman progeny. Joe was known for his black top hat and cloak, his monobrow, and, most notably, for his uncut fingernails, which Marins grew to over 9 inches in length. Though nearly unknown outside of Brazil during the height of his popularity, within that country Coffin Joe was a homegrown bogeyman of superstar status, roughly equivalent to Freddy Kruger.
  • Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind was created from repurposed and unused footage from This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, The Strange World of Coffin Joe, The Awakening of the Beast, and others, mixed with newly shot scenes (there is approximately 35 minutes of new footage in the 86-minute movie). Some of the reused scenes had previously been nixed by censors.
  • The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe (1974) used a similar premise of director Marins facing off against his own character.
  • Marins says that the inspiration for this film came from a real life request from a psychiatrist. The doctor’s wife was obsessed with Marins’ Coffin Joe character, and seemed to believe he existed independently. Marins visited the couple and watched one of his films with them on a midnight TV broadcast; during the screening, he reminisced how he suffered from diarrhea and painful corns during the shooting of certain scenes. The spell was broken and the woman no longer believed in Coffin Joe.
  • Editor Nilcemar Leyart estimates that the final film contains more than 4,700 cuts.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: There are so many garage-surrealist possibilities here it boggles the mind—the woman-headed spider, the magic-markered buttocks, the human staircase—but ultimately the dominating figure is, appropriately, Coffin Joe himself: the dark, dagger-fingered nightmare undertaker who orchestrates this parade of Boschian delights.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Faces on asses; multi-headed torture blob

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: A circus of the damned crawling out of a cinematic scrapheap, Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind is the distilled essence of Coffin Joe at his most irrational and insistent.


Clip from Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

COMMENTS: A man circles a bikini babe while beating a bongo; after each circuit he stops and a new set of female legs pop into the Continue reading 57*. HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND (1978) →

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE COMING OF SIN (1978)

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La Visita del Vicio;  AKA Vice Makes a Visit

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DIRECTED BY: José Ramon Larraz

FEATURING: Patricia Granada, Lidia Zuazo, Rafael Machado

PLOT: An orphaned girl haunted by prophetic dreams becomes the maid of a wealthy young widow.

Still from the coming of sin (1978)

COMMENTS: If asked by a producer to make a “sexy movie,” not many directors would combine the unsettling atmosphere of Belgian weird fiction with the Tenebrism of the Spanish Baroque, and then mix it all up with an ancient Greek myth about bestiality. José Ramon Larraz does just that. The tale of Pasiphaë provides the surreal imagery; the painting of Diego Velazquez the light and shadows; and the setting, an isolated country manor house, is straight out of Thomas Owen, along with the film’s shockingly violent conclusion.

Trianna (Zuazo) suffers from a recurring nightmare. An orphan without any family, she ends up working for Lorna (Granada), an eccentric and independent widow living alone in the remote countryside. When Lorna asks Trianna about her dream, she says there’s a man on a horse and he frightens her, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. They drop the subject and soon fall into a cozy domesticity which eventually develops into a full-on Sapphic relationship.

When the subject of her nightmare appears in real life—a nude young man riding a black horse bareback—he terrifies Trianna (and tramples the rose bushes in the process). Trianna greets him with a double-barreled shotgun. “That’s no reason to shoot somebody,” Lorna tells her.

Lorna insists Trianna’s nightmare results from her fear of sex and/or men; she has books that will explain it all to her, but illiteracy saves Trianna from having to read volumes of pop psychology. Instead, she visits the local fortune-teller, who asks why she even bothered to come, since her fate is sealed. Trianna is the devil’s child; and if she and the man on the black horse ever become a couple then someone will die.

After this disturbing revelation, the young man on the horse becomes a regular guest at Lorna’s house; she insists he learn some manners, so he begins wearing pants when he joins the ladies for tea. Eventually Chico (Machado) becomes the lover of both Trianna and Lorna, despite Trianna’s fears. Though Chico wants Trianna, Lorna begins aggressively pursuing him, unbalancing their fragile love triangle.

In between orgies, they visit the local museum, a nightclub where two female dancers perform a tango, and Lorna convinces Trianna and Chico to pose half-naked together for her latest painting. Lorna insists the pair would make a fine couple, even as she continues her clandestine visits to Chico’s shack down by the river. To make her assignations, Lorna passes through towering reeds, a landscape vividly described in Owen’s “The Conquered Beauty and the Troubadour,” wherein gunshots obliterate the post-coital calm of a summer afternoon.

Larraz started his artistic career as a comic book illustrator, and Spain’s then-restrictive censorship laws drove him to other parts of Europe. He turned to directing films after a chance meeting with Josef von Sternberg in Brussels, where Larraz also met Owen, friend of Jean Ray, the author of the novel Malpertuis. The influence of these two men shaped the course of Larraz’s idiosyncratic film career. The Coming of Sin was made in Spain upon his return at the end of the Franco regime.

In interviews, Larraz claims that every one of his films is actually a Thomas Owen story. Larraz wears this inspiration on his sleeve, but anyone who hasn’t read Owen’s work won’t recognize him as Larraz’s muse, and he’s never mentioned in the credits. Owen was a fan of old dark house stories (one of his collections is titled “Les Maisons suspectes”), and Larraz clearly shares this obsession. His first film, 1970’s Whirlpool, takes place in an isolated house outside of London, where the protagonists get up to artsy, sexy, and occasionally murderous menages á trois, as they do in The Coming of Sin.

In Owen’s stories uncanny events fracture mundane life. Old mansions reveal to strangers worlds unto themselves, where the normal rules of everyday existence no longer apply. The Coming of Sin exists in numerous cuts and under a plethora of titles (S&M scenes were excised from some versions, or augmented with hardcore footage in others), but Owen’s themes are the focus in Larraz’s original. When Trianna and Chico intrude upon Lorna’s den of solitude they set in motion the hand of fate.

The films of Larraz (AKA J. R. Larrath) are admittedly something of an acquired taste. Like and , his pacing can be slow, the scenery repetitive, the amateur acting impeded by stilted dialogue. He had the makings of a genuine auteur; his film Symptoms was England’s submission to Cannes in 1974, where it received favorable notice from French audiences. Despite that success, Larraz primarily worked in low budget Eurotrash productions, his wild imagination sacrificed to excessive sex scenes and gore at the behest of producers. But no matter how cheap or sleazy the film, Larraz always retained his artist’s eye, and he speaks in his own voice, a unique downbeat tone with a heart of weird fiction hidden at the core.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

‘…another Larraz offering that is almost weirdly suffused with a near hallucinogenic, dreamlike ambience, despite some of the more shocking aspects of the visuals.”–Jeffrey Kauffman, Blu-ray.com (Arrow box set)

Blood Hunger: The Films of José Larraz ( Whirlpool / Vampyres / La visita del vicio ) ( Whirlpool / Vampyres / The Coming of Sin ) [ Blu-Ray, Reg.A/B/C Import - United Kingdom ]

Blood Hunger: The Films of José Larraz ( Whirlpool / Vampyres / La visita del vicio ) ( Whirlpool / Vampyres / The Coming of Sin ) [ Blu-Ray, Reg.A/B/C Import - United Kingdom ]
  • Blood Hunger: The Films of José Larraz ( Whirlpool / Vampyres / La visita del vicio ) ( Whirlpool /
  • Blood Hunger: The Films of José Larraz
  • Whirlpool / Vampyres / La visita del vicio
  • Whirlpool / Vampyres / The Coming of Sin
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List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ADELA HAS NOT HAD SUPPER YET (1978)

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Adéla ještě nevečeřela
AKA Dinner For Adele; Nick Carter in Prague; Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Nad’a Konvalinkova, Ladislav Pesek, Vaclav Lohinsky,

PLOT: Nick Carter (Dočolomanský), America’s Greatest Detective, is requested to come to Prague to solve the disappearance of a member of a prominent noble family. But even with the help of his local guide Inspector Ledvina (Hrušínský), countless gadgets, and his own American know-how and constant vigilance, it might just not be enough against his greatest adversary, The Gardener, and his creation Adela…

… and Adela has not had supper yet!

Still from Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It’s fun pastiche like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and high adventure like the Bond films—but done at a fraction of the cost, and more smartly, without getting in the way of the fun.

COMMENTS: We open with the sound of an orchestra tuning up, followed by a conductor leading the start of a symphony which is interrupted by flash cuts of a dime novel illustration and the sounds of a tack-piano. This battle goes on for a few seconds, with the illustration and piano winning out and the credits beginning. High culture and low culture merged into entertainment, which is a pretty good encapsulation of the work of Oldřich Lipský: pastiche and parody merged with satire and (subtle?) commentary.

Adela is another good-natured lark, much like the director’s earlier Western parody Lemonade Joe. This time, the parody features Nick Carter, a dime-novel detective who was a major character of pop culture in the early 20th Century. In this iteration, he’s a combination of Sherlock Holmes (of whom he has an autographed photo and a note of admiration) and James Bond (with an array of gadgets to assist him). “America’s Greatest Detective,” as the sign on his door states, he effortlessly defeats several perpetrators even before the story gets properly underway.

The adventure melodrama is a standardized form, but the basic plot can take a myriad of variations. In this case, it’s also a Victorian slapstick yarn, with hints of steampunk on the fringes. Plus, it’s actually fun and funny. Lipský’s comedy stagings are almost flawless: only Blake Edwards (specifically The Party and The Pink Panther Strikes Again) comes close—although Lipský was more consistent. Think how much better The Great Race would’ve been if it were a Lipský film…

It’s all very genial and innocent, although there’s a tinge of satire present. Czechs are ribbed, from Carter’s description of them as “down to Earth types,” to Inspector Ledvina’s constant consumption of beer and sausages. America is also gently mocked: “America’s Greatest Detective” lives in New York, “America’s Greatest City,” and as Nick himself affirms, “Americans do everything grandly”. But there’s also American arrogance; “Europe is decay,” Nick states to Ledvina during a limburger lunch, and American puritanism surfaces during his encounters with women, both those who are attempting to kill him and those who are slightly friendlier.

Made more than a decade after Lemonade Joe, this was Lipský’s second of three collaborations with write/animator Jiří Brdečka. It was followed by The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians with much of the same cast. As with Mysterious Castle and Lemonade Joe, Brdečka’s experience as an animator adds to the visual humor; a reference to the Escher portrait ‘Hand With Reflecting Sphere‘, running gags in the background set up early which pay off in the last third of the film, and Brdečka’s animation of the Gardener’s backstory. Jan Svankmajer assists with animating Adela (a man-eating plant with as much personality, but not the vocabulary, of The Little Shop of Horrors‘ Audrey II)—mainly when she’s having her supper.

Like Mysterious Castle, Adela got its first U.S. home video release on a Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray, with a new restoration and a commentary track from Czech film expert Irena Kovarova and film critic Tereza Brdečková (Brdečka’s daughter). Like the previous release, the extras are weighted towards Brdečka’s career rather than focusing on just Adela. Four of Brdečka’s animated shorts are included; Badly Drawn Hen (Špatně namalovaná slepice), Forester’s Song (Do lesíčka na čekanou), What Did I Not Tell The Prince (Co jsem princi neřekla) and The Miner’s Rose (Horníkova růže). The deluxe limited edition includes a 60 page booklet with essays by Walter Chaw and Jonathan Owen as well as excerpts from the 2015 book “JIŘÍ BRDEČKA: Life-Animation-Magic,” with storyboards from Adela and the shorts.

Lipský disappears a bit from the discussion; but Brdečka benefits from having 1) a direct living relative still able to beat the drum for his accomplishments and 2) having been an integral part of the . There’s still a lot of Lipský left to premiere on USA-friendly home video, so future releases may rectify the slight against Lipský, if indeed there is much bonus material on the director.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The dialogue, in subtitles, is strictly 70’s streetrap, and its non sequitur placement in the turn-of-the century provinciality is hysterical. The performances are well timed camp, and the entire colorful romp is strictly for fun.”–Michael Lasky, Bay Area Reporter (contemporaneous)Still from Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978)

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet [blu-ray]

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet [blu-ray]
  • The beloved Czech cult comedy / horror / mystery about a handsome but bumbling detective and a man-eating plant
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Capsules

CAPSULE: THE ADVENTURES OF PICASSO [PICASSOS ÄVENTYR] (1978)

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DIRECTED BY: Tage Danielsson

FEATURING: Gösta Ekman, Hans Alfredson, Margaretha Krook, Lena Olin, Bernard Cribbins, Wilfrid Brambell

PLOT: The life of the legendary Spanish painter, told with a  questionable level of veracity.

Still from The Adventures of Picasso (1978)

COMMENTS: In a few weeks, a motion picture will make its streaming debut purporting to tell the remarkable story of pop music’s crown prince of parody, . Weird promises to cover every step of the master accordionist’s life and, whenever possible, to subvert the proceedings with lies and misdirections. It’s a fitting approach for someone who has built a career out of taking familiar sounds and destroying them from within.

What it won’t be is unprecedented. The grand womb-to-tomb biopic has been assailed before. Its conventions have been savagely parodied. We’ve seen lives thoroughly misappropriated with falsehoods and flights of invention. (And that’s to say nothing of legitimate productions that shred the truth to achieve better storytelling.) It turns out that a leading exemplar of the ridiculous film biography hit screens years earlier, the product of a Swedish comedy duo who wondered what it would be like to make an authoritative biography when you have virtually no knowledge of the subject.

Like a book report by a student who did absolutely none of the reading, this take on the life of Picasso is drenched in flopsweat. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, the pieces of the Picasso legend are already falling into place: young Pablo has established his bonafides at art school (successfully painting a nude after seeing the model for a split second), relocated to Madrid, adopted his trademark striped shirt and white trousers, and invented cubism. Having burned what few facts they have available, the filmmakers pivot to wildly making stuff up. Did you know that Picasso was gifted with a vial of magical ink by a woman he saved from a pair of foul brigands? Maybe you recall his illustrious contemporaries, who evidently include Ernest Hemingway, Erik Satie, two Toulouse-Lautrecs, Puccini (and his real life Mimi), Vincent van Gogh, and even Rembrandt. And who can forget the real story of how a petty artistic quibble between Churchill and Hitler presaged World War II. (No wonder Picasso would seek refuge in America, despite the notorious Art Prohibition of the Roaring Twenties.) The Adventures of Picasso is the movie equivalent of converting text into Japanese in Google Translate and then back.

One of the film’s most inventive techniques is the choice to dispense with dialogue altogether. Actors speak in grunts and gibberish or spout cursory and irrelevant phrases in pidgin versions of various languages. (A persistent chanteuse sings lyrics that are actually a recipe for a Finnish fish pastry.) Even the headline of the traditional newspaper carrying the word of the outbreak of World War I reads simply “BOOM KRASCH BANG!” Only the narration is necessary to carry the story forward, and you get a different version depending upon your native tongue. (English-speakers like myself are treated to comic actor Bernard Cribbins, in his role as Gertrude Stein.) The filmmakers have thus given themselves an out: don’t understand what’s going on? No worries; you’re not supposed to.

While writers Danielsson and Alfredson will do anything for a joke, they show surprising empathy for the Picasso they’ve created. There’s an extended skit where the onscreen Picasso is forced to do whatever the narrator dictates, and that typifies the notion that Picasso ultimately had no agency, a victim of his own success. His father is a relentless huckster; when his dicey hair tonic instantly produces Picasso’s famous baldness, the old man immediately sells the locks to capitalize on his son’s fame. Throughout the rest of his “career,” dear old dad will be there, making friends with history’s greatest monsters and looking for the quickest way to make a buck. At the end, the great artist is nothing more than an exhibit himself; his home is a theme park and his doves of peace are trinkets to be sold. In this telling, Picasso doesn’t so much die as drop out, leaving our materialistic world behind.

The Adventures of Picasso certainly takes an unusual approach to biography; if you come hoping to learn anything about the creative mind behind “Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon” or “Guernica,” you will surely be disappointed. And even the deeper truth that may be lurking within seems suspect; the real Picasso was far from an innocent and was in full control of his brand. But there’s something almost noble about the notion that if you can’t get it right, then by all means get it completely and utterly wrong. Or, as another great biographical subject once observed, “It doesn’t matter if it’s boiled or fried. Just eat it.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The Adventures of Picasso‘ is billed as ‘a lunatic comedy,’ and while it does achieve that feeling on a couple of rare occasions, for the most part it’s like a bad dream… The film’s strategy is to make everything as feverishly absurd as it can be…. But too much of it has the ring of desperation. It’s all too frantic for words.” Janet Maslin, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Ettin, who called it a “[S]wedish surreal comedy” that ” [I]’m sure you will like.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)