Devant le mur

An acerbic and raw description of humanity’s deadly penchants throughout the ages and the self-destructive bents of Western society, this short film by René Laloux is based on Roland Topor’s drawings (as will be the case with Les escargots, followed by La planète sauvage) and also marks the filmmaker’s first collaboration with composer Alain Goraguer. Imbued with the cynical and provocative spirit of the cofounder of the Panic movement, Les temps morts is a sarcastic film-treatise whose darkness and desperate humour are expressed in fresh artistic inventions throughout.