Most theorists of cinema read, paradoxically,
the avant-garde from the perspective of mainstream narrative
film, whether unconsciously or not. This complex and disruptive,
stylistically heterogeneous and hermeneutically subversive text
continues the project of Toufic’s earlier book, (Vampires):
An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film, in which the exigencies
of avant-garde film, conversely, inform a broader reading of
narrative structure, iconology, and epistemology. In this context,
the author undertakes (an irresistible pun) the study of the
previously neglected domain of narration from the point
of view of the dead, inaugurating a major theme in which
popular and traditional rituals intersect with the avant-garde.
Allen S. Weiss, Sulfur 42, Spring 1998
