Les Souffrances D’un Oeuf Meurtri

1967
Country: Belgium
Duration: 19 mins
Colour,
Sound: sound

  ,

A surrealist saga in four parts:
1.) The credit sequence in which title cards show successively larger foetuses pulsating on the screen until the baby is born and cries.
2.) Etoile-directly referring to Cocteau, Lethem shows an adolescent sucking a starfish and then giving birth to a smaller starfish. A statement of inadequacy. To give birth involves an emasculation and a loss of vitality.
3.) Corps-two images of a man on a couch groping for each other, watched by a mysterious peeping Tom. As the two superimposed images come together, the heavy breathing subsides…the statement that the birth of desire is a self – realisation.
4.) Hymen – The decaying body of a girl is shot through green filters, and the final image reveals her vagina crawling with maggots and overlain with a crucifix. A representation of Catholicism preventing the free expression of desire.

More works by Roland Lethem

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