(Yoji Kuri/1972/Japan)
Imagine The Fantastic Planet had
fallen through the arse end of an event horizon into Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden
of Earthly Delights and you’ll be near enough to the 9 minutes of depraved
surrealism that is Yoji Kuri’s The Midnight Parasites. With an overriding theme
of consumption and excretion as a metaphor for the cycle of life and at times
an obvious critique of the capitalist system of consumption and production
(witness the Centipede like image of figures crouching in a circle, shitting
money to be eaten by the person behind), it is a bizarre but pointed assault on
the sensibilities of the viewer. 
The animation is close to kids’ programmes of
the time, with softness, lots of curved edges and genuinely very like The
Fantastic Planet in places. This deliberate style only adds to the feeling of
dislocation it induces. It is sound tracked by a playful and goofily sinister
score of undulating drones and picked guitar notes. A real treat: The Midnight Parasites
(4/5)
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