I think a reviewer of the film SWEET MOVIE said it best..."what was director Dusan Makavejev smoking and where can I get some?"
Yesterday at the video store, a captivating DVD cover caught my eye. A doily headdress veil cascading over a naked woman in a ribbon chastity belt. Hmmm. What could this film be about?
My mind may never be the same.
I watched this, last night and again today. Yet still the phrase that rings in my head is "what's happening?"
I'm not sure if what I've witnessed is legal. What happened to the director, the writer to make this movie? How do you get to this place?
This movie makes Holy Mountain look like a Disney flick, seriously. Dusan Makavejev's SWEET MOVIE will stamp your brain with visuals from a cracked kaleidescope spinning feces, urine, candy, gynecological beauty pageants, food orgies, to a naked bodybuilder jumping rope. There are men drinking eachother's urine, an affair where the couple are locked in an orgasmic spasm and a girl zipped up into a suitcase heading for Paris. What!?
This surreal and bizarre film was created in 1974 and was meant to show the future 1984. It's been described as a "revolutionary Marxist sex comedy". Sweet Movie is still banned in many countries and actress Anna Prucnal was exiled from her native country Poland for seven years as a result of her role in the movie. She was denied a Visa to enter Poland to see her dying mother during that time. Whoa?
As for the plot (descibed like a collage) the film alternates between the sexual adventures of two women. The first is Miss Canada 1984 (Carole Laure), who, in addition to the her beauty crown, wins the right to marry Mr. Dollars, the richest man in the world. On the night of their honeymoon, Miss Canada is frightened by Dollars' golden penis, and flees his estate. But not before her new mother-in-law pushes her in a pool and attempts to keep her under. Miss Canada—begins the film as an innocent sweetheart and is slowly corrupted by a series of lecherous men, eventually folding herself into a sad fetal position.
The other lady is Anna Planeta (Anna Prucnal), who captains a steamboat with a large papier-mache head of Karl Marx on the front. She picks up a young sailor, and the two engage in a series of erotic adventures that involve beds of sugar and violent mishaps. Anna is later shown in one of the most alluring doily delights, a flimsy bow and magical veil, as well as tiny knit dainty gloves. She lures young boys aboard and seduces them with sugar and sex. These pedophilia moments depict her dancing around them and placing her lace undergarments across their faces. Eventually unzipping their pants in front of a large Karl Marx mural. The dirty ol man is always watching. Odd and surreal is an understatement here.
Yugoslav art-house provocateur Dusan Makavejev created this film about bourgeois complacency INSTEAD of taking Francis Ford Coppolla up on his offer to direct " Apocalypse Now ". Which I thought was pretty cool. Because as messed up as war movies are, nothing can prepare you for the shellshock "Sweet Movie" with deliver.
I think there is something to be said about the "overindulgance" of all of these pleasures. The movie ending with Miss Canada writhing in a massive bowl of chocolate-practically choking in it. Too much of anything is perhaps not always so sweet?
Here's a cool pic of actress Carole Laure from the 70's
and here she is today- STILL super sexy
here's the cover for Dusan Makavejev's film WR:Mysteries of the Organism- created before Sweet Movie (this was the film that made Coppolla want him for Apocalypse Now
this is amazing! i just recently bought the Alejandro Jodorowsky box set for my boy and so we've been watching every film, with and without commentary, and routinely having our minds blown. i'm pretty excited about getting more into the crazycrazy world of psychedelic films, and this film seems so intriguing!
thanks for the tip :D
Posted by: ashley miller | August 22, 2007 at 09:42 PM