Sweet Movie (Criterion Collection)
by Dusan Makavejev
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anna Prucnal, Carole Laure, Jane Mallett, Pierre Cl?menti, Sami FreyDirector: Dusan Makavejev
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Polish (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection
Movie Reviews of Sweet Movie (Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: from scatology to eschatology
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to begin by admitting this is not an easy film to watch. To the regular viewer, the scatological overtones are gratuitous, to say the least. However, watching this film within its politico-temporal context, one can see that it is rather mis-characterized. Allow me to explain my journey in watching this film:
Like many of you, I decided to watch it just because Criterion put it out. I've known Yugoslav cinema to be rather colorful and did not mind a bit. As things started, I immediately saw the transparent pointers to cartoon-like representations of the US, Soviet Empire and even Western Europe for good measure, and the end-conclusion/state of each one of the systems. Alright, assuming the film was made in the '90s, I said to myself, "For the sake of completeness and honesty, where is the depiction of the Yugoslav tragedy?"
Indeed, post-WWII Yugoslavia had been an interesting historic anomaly. Its president, the Croat Iosip Broz Tito, who had won the best anti-fascist credentials leading the partisan fight from the mountains, managed to steer his country clear of the two major blocs on a third way. In other words, he was a socialist leader of a socialist country, within a socialist geography, who did not take orders from the Soviet bloc. Tito's Yugoslavs were enjoying most freedom--of thinking and movement--from all socialist countries. Then in 1991, 11 years after Tito passed away, Yugoslavia went up in flames. So, I'd have expected a bit of self-reflection from an Yugoslav director. Then, pausing briefly, I checked the production date and was stunned to see it was turned in 1974.
To put things in perspective, in 1974, the Cold War was going strong, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States, and Solzhenitsyn was deported From Russia. Now, why is this last point relevant? Because, before Solzhenitsyn made it to the West, large numbers in the western intelligentsia had been pro-Soviet, going as far as denying the atrocities perpetrated in the name of communism. So, you can imagine, it took a talented Yugoslav director, and a visionary in many ways, to say it all in "Sweet Movie," as we all have come to witness at high speed as we entered the 1990s. Yes, hear from any former subject of (East European) socialism and "eating s*h*i*t" was an usual metaphor describing the official discourse. Yes, many young and idealist had been figuratively drawn in by the sugar of, and then devoured by, the Socialist Revolution orchestrated by Moscow. And, yes, here in the west, a lot from what we do is put a mask on things to sell more/better.
So, unless one can watch this film taking into account its context, Dusan Makavejev and his "Sweet Movie" will get maligned. Context accounted for, this is an important document that stands the test of time and art. Yes, this can be art, the type that calls for attention not to itself but to the greater dangers we face as society at one point or another. Scatology is a means to militant art. In fact, Makavejev turns scatology into eschatology, and so should the viewer.
Summary of Sweet Movie (Criterion Collection)
Pushing his themes of sexual liberation to their boiling point, Yugoslavian art-house provocateur Dusan Makavejev followed his international sensation WR: Mysteries of the Organism with this full-throated shriek in the face of bourgeois complacency and movie watching. Sweet Movie tackles the limits of personal and political freedom with kaleidoscopic feverishness, shuttling viewers from a gynecological beauty pageant to a grotesque food orgy with scatological, taboo-shattering glee. With its lewd abandon and sketch-comedy perversity, Sweet Movie became both a cult staple and an exemplar of the envelope pushing of 1970s cinema.Art House & International DVD Video
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