At the start of the film, a young man, a poor nineteen-year- old student, turns to the audience: ‘What’s everyone waiting for? People always wait in the dark, but nothing happens.’ Terayama’s protagonist talks about all kinds of problems that occur to him as the film unfolds. His flight from home, his failed study, his family, his sexual frustration, in other words a long series of thoughts in pictures. Then he wonders what the film has meant to him. In addition to the student, friends of Terayama, a doctor, a critic, militant students, gays, transvestites and a group of musicians appear in the film. Terayama wanted to breathe new life into art by erasing the real and imaginary memory. His oeuvre is characterised by a rebellious, fantastic and poetic style in which personal and sexual freedom are important elements.
