Criterion Collection: Sweet Movie [DVD] [1974] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

While typing this I still can't believe what I just watched and thankfully enough I had a couple of wine glass's to relax my senses. This movie is like all over the place but its essentially two inter-cut stories, but I can explain better by separating them two. Weirdly enough I'll start with the second story with a woman (Anna Prucnal) who helms a boat through the canals of Amsterdam with a bust of Marx on the bow. A sailor on a bicycle from the battleship Potemkin pursues her, as he wants to be her next lover. She is "revolution" and warns him that her lovers always die. While that is playing out, controversy occurs when she seduces several young children. Makevejev intercuts German footage of the uncovering of Polish victims of the Russian massacre at Katyn Forest. He contrasts Prucnal's victims with the dead Polish army.

In the primary plot line, a world beauty contest is held to find the most beautiful virgin in the world, who will become the bride of a rich Texas oilman (Dean Wormer!) who is obsessed with cleanliness. Miss Canada (Carole Laure) is the winner. The couple gets married and helicopters to his home. He undresses, scrubs her with alcohol, and then shows her his golden swhwartz, whereupon she starts screaming uncontrollably. Eventually, his overbearing mother sends her packing (literally packed into a suitcase) where she has adventures with a macho Mexican singer at the Eiffel Tower, but becomes increasingly withdrawn and mute, and ends up in the Otto Muehl Troupe commune. It is this section which earned the film's notoriety, as the troupe believes in a kind of therapy where we all get in touch with our base selves, and have monthly events where they target a member, and engage in overeating, public defecation and urination, debasement, etc. The film ends with an amazing nude bath in chocolate.

Despite the constant sexuality and shock value, few scenes are actually erotic. Director Makavejev has more on his mind than just sex, however. He spends a good deal of time on political satire. Some, like the Texas oilman sequence, is heavy-handed and cartoonish (though his vision of 1984 America and its sexual double standards, with the funding of the Chastity Belt Foundation, quite presciently anticipates Reaganite America). More fierce is his criticism of the Soviet denial of the Katyn Forest massacre, boldly using Nazi footage of the exhumations, then frequently disparaged as mere propaganda but now known to be the truth, to accuse the Russians of genocidal war crimes. Besides that "Sweet Movie" is clearly not for kids (though they like sugar), or even most adults, this is a movie only for those who want to have there buttons pushed.

Apparently the Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev turned down the opportunity to direct 'Apocalypse Now' in order to make this film, and I for one am very glad that he did.

This film is one of the most out there films I've ever seen (and I like my films to be very out there). It's got it all, just when you think it can't get any more outrageous it still manages to.

It's got a Miss World Virginity contest, where the hymen of every contestant is checked by a doctor on stage, a billionaire with a gold plated penis, a bodybuilder who lives in a giant milk bottle, a boat filled with candy which has a giant Karl Marx head on its bow, a female killer on board this boat who seduces young boys and kills people in a bed of sugar, a Viennese commune where they have food orgies, defecation contests and pee themselves while dressed like babies, and ends with Miss World writhing around naked in a huge vat of chocolate!

This film will blow you away, quite unlike any other film I've ever seen. A bit of surrealism in there mixed with Reichian psychology, political statements and bawdy toilet humour. It's all stunningly shot in technicolour and is beautifully colourful and pop arty too. It's also got a stunning soundtrack by Manos Hadjidakis. A wonderful trip, but not for the dull or faint hearted.

Dusan Makavejev's 1974 film Sweet Movie is an indictment toward all forms of authority and convention. It does not obviously or even wittingly perhaps come from an honest political standard itself, but it instead exists to attack all that rules us. It skewers capitalism, communism, and absolutely everything in between. Perhaps it is a call specifically for some sort of Anarcho-Primitivism? Perhaps Sweet Movie is simply a celebration of life in its own sick and twisted way?

Sweet Movie follows two different stories and both feature a female protagonist. The first follows a contestant of the 1984 Miss Monde pageant. She wins and her prize is her marriage to some big corporate dude. She is shocked by how he degrades her in their first meeting and she runs away. Her rejection is met with displeasure by his cronies and she ends up getting pretty severely humiliated and then stuffed into a suitcase and shipped off to France. After that she gets stuck to some Latin guy and enters a commune and some pretty wacky things happen. This story operates as a criticism toward capitalism and consumerism at the beginning and the conclusion, while it seems to attack communism in the middle. The second story follows a young woman who is leading a boat down a river. The boat is full of candy and has a statue of Karl Marx on it. She seduces all who encounter her with sex, candy and propaganda. Then she kills them. Obviously it is a direct attack on communism.

There are some pretty shocking things in Sweet Movie but that shouldn't be a surprise when taking into account the time period and some of the subversive and surreal counterculture names involved in the film (e.g. Otto Muehl, Roland Topor and George Melly). The film captures a cultural movement in some respects and the significance is there but overall Sweet Movie was too obscure to have an impact. Only now does it resonate but for very different reasons. It stands out for its visual shock alone.

There is a very strong emphasis on bodily functions in Sweet Movie, more so than anything I've ever seen or even want to see again for that matter. I can't pinpoint why but it's more than likely Dusan Makavejev's attempt to compel us to revolt against all of our societal institutions by directly desensitizing us to his perspective that we are all just gassy and disgusting animals. Spend a few days resisting your normal cognitive functions or spend some time with dementia patients and you'll get a good smell of what Makavejev is trying to get at here...I think? I'm not sure I agree with him in those sorts of details, but in spirit I like where he is going with Sweet Movie. We all could use a good smack away from the restraints of everyday society.

Keep in mind; it is virtually impossible to get anything out of Sweet Movie if you take it too literally. It is designed to surprise the viewer and club them over the head with shock. The problem with that is Sweet Movie was so shocking for its time that it was hardly even seen. People were not ready then, but maybe the world has grown sicker since. Criterion may have picked a more accessible release date for Sweet Movie than Makavejev did. Asking ourselves the questions that this film might produce may be more important now than ever.