Death Laid an Egg

Death Laid an Egg (La Morte Ha Fatto L’uovo) (1968)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Giulio Questi

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gina Lollobrigida, Ewa Aulin, Barbara Pignaton, Jean Sobieski

From: A few different Italian and French companies

Undoubtedly the most befuddling film I’ll ever see concerning poultry farmers. After a day off from seeing motion pictures on Saturday (which was needed), last night I went to a service I took a break from for a month (Arrow’s streaming site) so I could tip my cap to two late actors: Gina Lollobrigida-passed away in January-and Jean-Louis Trintignant, who died last June yet for some reason I never saw much of any publicity over this happening. Although, that sure as heck isn’t as strange as this movie! To clarify, the cut that Arrow has is the theatrical rather than a 15 minute longer Director’s Cut which presumably would be further baffling to me.

Loosely speaking, this is a giallo (even by pre-Argento standards, “giallo” is a term used loosely here) where Jean-Louis and Gina are a married couple who own a poultry farm and their chickens are boneless; yes, living, boneless chicken. Now I know where boneless wings come from… anyhow, there are problems at the farm, Gina’s attractive cousin Gabri (Ewa Aulin) is staying there currently, the couple’s marriage appears to be in peril-and oh yeah, he is also a serial killer!

From the very beginning, it was apparent the film would be even more bizarre than expected. From the editing to the insertion of random images at times—the sometimes discordant and always peculiar music and plot twists to the surreal moments, a dog dying (unfortunately) and sexual assault (really unfortunately)… to give an example, when the opening scene features blips of a random older gentleman putting a plastic bag over his head then taping said bag to himself as a rather painful method of suicide & this is shown presumably to heighten a scene of murder… that is the sort of journey the viewer goes on.

Overall, Death Laid an Egg isn’t 100% surreal and avant-garde where there’s no cogent or apparent plot to speak of. It also does not devolve into utter lunacy as I understand Beau is Afraid does—I’m thankful the film wasn’t either of that. Rather, this was just a relatively normal plot presented with a panoply of puzzling details. I would not even classify this as “Lynchian” so who I can recommend this to or even try to sell this to someone… there is a task I could not complete. But hey, this is something I’ll never forget.