A Dance Party in the Kingdom of Lilliput

Iimuras DANCE PARTY (IN THE KINGDOM OF LILLIPUT ) is a work of obvious appeal to the American sensibility. At once rollickingly humorous (its comedy is an elaboration on the classic films of Max Sennett and Charlie Chaplin, filtered through both the dada/surrealist cinema of the 1920s and the Japanese appreciation of those early experimental works) and rigorously intelligent, DANCE PARTY stands as a compelling pioneer effort of early 1960s Japanese avant-garde thought. It remains his most accessible production : witty, high-spirited and energetic, it is often mysterious but always delightfully provocative. -Sam McElfresh , Taka Iimura : Messaggero dOriente , “Giappone Avantguardia del Futuro “, Electa , Milano, 1985

“[The film] is related more to structuralist films, the image of a naked man being presented as chapters, the sequence is like moving stills, or short statements conveyed by means of gestures. Each sequence is preceded by a title. Just as a concrete poem consists of words grouped together according to sound, and not necessarily according to meaning, so in this film the images are grouped together according to how to look and not necessarily according to what they mean. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call what are generally known as structural films concrete.” – Stephen Dwoskin , FILM IS, 1975.