Some background: the Chilean enfant terrible Alejandro Jodorowsky, arriving in early 1960s Paris to become the “savior of surrealism,” found that the movement had stagnated to the point of disinterest. He joined with fellow France based provocateurs Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor (1938-1997) to create the panic movement, which became known for elaborate happenings that involved animal corpses, entrails and rampant scatology, with the most infamous of those happenings being the May 1965 free-expression festival held at the Paris based American Cultural Center. That four hour event was immortalized (in part) in HE! VIVA DADA, a 1965 documentary by Jean-Michael Humeau that only lasts 39 minutes, but provides a strong taste of what occurred that fateful day in the City of Light.
The setting is a classroom sized enclosure in which performers cavort on a highly cluttered stage, flanked by an amused audience. The Panic Movement’s three major figures are all represented, along with the late American poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), making for a true four way collaboration for the ages.
The first portion of the happening was scripted and staged by Arrabal. It features a provocatively dressed young woman trying to seduce a fly mask wearing fellow, followed by a rain of feathers and a lot of excess people milling about onstage—a great deal of footage was evidently left out, and Humeau doesn’t bother filling us in on what we missed. A Topor staged ramble follows, involving another provocatively dressed young woman and two-dimensional illustrated figures, drawn in a style that will be instantly recognizable to Topor fans. It concludes with an epic spaghetti fight and a car being smashed up onstage.
Things are changed up a bit around the twenty minute mark, with a lengthy English language Ginsberg interview (Q: “Allen, which drugs did you try?” A: “All of them”), followed by a frenzied symphony in which naked dancers cavort and gyrate amid snakes and crucifixes. The best is saved for last: a skit staged by and starring Mr. Jodorowsky, who tosses a pig’s head into the audience, rubs animal entrails on his scalp and climbs into an inflatable vagina. It all concludes with close-ups of brooms sweeping up the happening’s waste at the end of the day, which includes scattered dolls and empty bottles.
Humeau’s spare black and white imagery is far from ideal. The camera rarely ever stays still, or properly captures what’s occurring, with foreground action and wavering focus often rendering the onstage antics indecipherable. Still, this is the only filmic record of this happening that I’m aware of, which by itself renders HE! VIVA DADA an important document.
Vital Statistics
HE! VIVA DADA
Alga Cinema
Director: Jean-Michael Humeau
Screenplay: Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Roland Topor
Cinematography: Alain Derobe, Jean-Pierre Mirouze
Editing: Luc Perinin
Cast: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal, Jose Denoblet, Allen Ginsberg, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Roland Topor