''Sweet Movie'' is a 1974

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by Yugoslavian director

Dušan Makavejev Dušan Makavejev ( sr-Cyrl, Душан Макавејев, ; 13 October 1932 – 25 January 2019) was a Serbian film director and screenwriter, famous for his groundbreaking films of Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s—many of wh ...

. An

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companie ...

of companies from

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, and

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

, the film follows two women: a Canadian beauty queen, who represents a modern commodity culture, and a captain aboard a ship laden with candy and sugar, who is a failed communist revolutionary.

Plot

One narrative follows Miss Monde 1984/

Miss Canada Miss Canada is a beauty pageant for young women in Canada. It was founded in Hamilton in 1946. No title was awarded from 1993 through 2008. The trademark was purchased in 2009 by a Québec organization who produces the pageant under the name to ...

, who wins a contest of the "most virgin"; her prize is the marriage to a milk industry tycoon. However, following his degrading puritanical introduction to intercourse, she vents her intention to leave to her mother-in-law who, at that point, nearly has her killed. The family bodyguard takes her away, further humiliates her, and finally packs her in a trunk bound for Paris. She finds herself on the Eiffel Tower, where she absently meets and has intercourse with a Latin singer, El Macho. The sexual act is interrupted by touring nuns who frighten the lovers into penis captivus. In her post-coital shocked state, she is adopted into an artist community led by

Otto Muehl Otto Muehl (16 June 1925 – 26 May 2013) was an Austrian artist, who was known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism and for founding the Friedrichshof Commune. In 1943, Muehl had to serve in the German ...

, where she finds affectionate care. The commune practices some liberating sessions, where a member, with the assistance of the others, goes through a (re)birth experience, cries, urinates and defecates like a baby, while the others are cleaning and pampering him. Later she is seen acting for an obscene advertisement, in which she is naked, covered in liquid chocolate. The second narrative involves a woman, Anna Planeta piloting a candy-filled boat in the canals of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with a large papier-mache head of Karl Marx on the prow. She picks up the hitchhiking sailor Potemkin, though she warns him that if he falls in love, she will kill him. He ignores her many suggestions for him to leave and their relationship evolves. Eventually, in the state of love making, she stabs him to death in their

nidus Nidus may refer to: * Nidus (nest), for insects or small animals * The characteristic lesion in osteoid osteoma * The centre of a bladder stone * The material around which an enterolith An enterolith is a mineral concretion or calculus formed ...

of sugar. She also seduces children into her world of sweets and revolution. She is eventually apprehended and arrested by the police who lay down plastic sacks containing the children's bodies on the side of the canal, implying they too have been killed by Planeta. The film ends with the children, unseen by the others, being reborn from their plastic cocoons.

Cast

Carole Laure Carole Laure O.C. (born August 5, 1948) is an actress and singer from Quebec, Canada. Career Throughout most of her career, Carole Laure primarily collaborated with Anglophone singer, songwriter, producer, and director Lewis Furey, whom she ...

as Miss Monde 1984/Miss Canada * John Vernon as Mr. Kapital *

Jane Mallett Jane Mallett (April 17, 1899 – April 14, 1984) was a Canadian actress. She was born as Jean Dawson Keenleyside in London, Ontario, Canada. Career Her films included ''Love at First Sight'' with Dan Aykroyd, ''The Sweet and the Bitter'', ''Th ...

as PDG/Chastity Belt Lady *

Roy Callender Roy Callender (born October 31, 1944) is a Barbadian Canadian IFBB Hall of Famer retired professional bodybuilder, professional wrestler and actor. Early life and career Callender was born in Barbados to an academician couple. His interest in bo ...

as Jeremiah Muscle *

Sami Frey Sami Frey (born Samuel Frei; 13 October 1937) is a French actor of Iranian Jewish descent. Among the films he starred in are '' En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud'' (1993), in which he portrays French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud Antoine Ma ...

as El Macho *

Anna Prucnal Anna Prucnal (born 17 December 1940) is a Polish actress in both cinema and theatre, as well as a singer. Prucnal was born in Warsaw, Poland. After her father, a surgeon, was killed by the Nazis during World War II, Anna and her sister were ra ...

as Anna Planeta/Capt. Ann *

Pierre Clémenti Pierre André Clémenti (28 September 1942 – 27 December 1999) was a French actor. Life and career Born in Paris to an unknown father and Rose Clémenti, a Corsican concierge whose surname he took, Clémenti had a difficult childhood and took ...

as Potemkin Sailor *

as Member of Therapie-Komune *

Marpessa Dawn Marpessa Dawn (January 3, 1934 – August 25, 2008), also known as Gypsy Marpessa Dawn Menor, was an American-born French actress, as well as a singer and dancer. She is best remembered for her role in the film '' Black Orpheus'' (1959). Biogr ...

as Mama Communa *

Roland Topor Roland Topor (7 January 1938 – 16 April 1997) was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surreal nature of his work. He was of Polish-Jewish ...

George Melly Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for '' The Observer''; he also lectured on art history, with a ...

* Sonny Forbes * Therese Schulmeister * Renata Steiger * Denis Boucher * Louis Bessières * Max Fischer *

Catherine Sola Catherine Sola (1941–2014) was a French film and television actress.Cowie & Elley p.135 Selected filmography * ''The Trip to Biarritz'' (1963) * ''The Counterfeit Constable'' (1964) * '' The Champagne Murders'' (1967) * '' Sweet Movie'' (1974) ...

* Hansi Roll * Berndt Stein * Herbert Stumpfl *

Sabine Haudepin Sabine Haudepin (born 19 October 1955) is a French actress. She has appeared in more than 50 films since 1962. She was born in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. Filmography References External links * * 1955 births Living people ...

Robin Gammell Robin Gammell (born September 22, 1936) is a Canadian film, television and stage actor."Transplanted to Hollywood". '' The Globe and Mail'', January 24, 1981. Career Gammell began acting as a junior ensemble member at the Stratford Shakespeare ...

* Vivian Vachon

Production

The film was originally intended to focus solely on the experiences of Miss Canada. However, the actress portraying the character,

, left the production after becoming increasingly disgusted over the actions required for her performance; she decided to quit after shooting a scene in which she fondled a man's penis on-screen. After Laure's departure, Makavejev re-wrote the script to include the second narrative, starring

Release

The film created a storm of controversy upon its release, with scenes of

coprophilia Coprophilia (from Greek κόπρος, ''kópros'' 'excrement' and φιλία, ''philía'' 'liking, fondness'), also called scatophilia or scat (Greek: σκατά, ''skatá'' 'feces'), is the paraphilia involving sexual arousal and pleasure from ...

, emetophilia, implied

child molestation Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whethe ...

, and footage of remains of the Polish

Katyn Massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

victims. The film was banned in many countries, including the United Kingdom, or severely cut; it is still banned in many countries to this day. Polish authorities banned Prucnal from using her

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

over the film, which effectively banned her from entering her native country for a number of years.

Critical response

''Sweet Movie'' received mixed reviews from critics. On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film holds a 50% approval rating based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10.

Home media

The film was nearly impossible to find since its initial release in 1974, but Criterion released the film on DVD in a

region 1 DVD DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to ...

on June 19, 2007.

References

External links

* *
Commentary by Lorraine Mortimer''Sweet Movie: Wake Up!''
an essay by

David Sterritt David Sterritt (born September 11, 1944) is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for ''The Christian Science Monitor'', where, from 1 ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

Brows Held High's take on the 1974 film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweet Movie 1974 films West German films 1970s English-language films English-language French films English-language German films 1970s French-language films 1970s Italian-language films 1970s Polish-language films 1970s Spanish-language films 1970s avant-garde and experimental films 1974 comedy-drama films Films about sexual repression French avant-garde and experimental films French comedy-drama films Canadian avant-garde and experimental films Canadian comedy-drama films German avant-garde and experimental films German comedy-drama films Films about anarchism Films about child sexual abuse Films about pedophilia Films about food and drink Films about beauty queens Films directed by Dušan Makavejev Censored films Obscenity controversies in film Films about rape Cultural depictions of Karl Marx Films scored by Manos Hatzidakis Roland Topor 1974 multilingual films French multilingual films Canadian multilingual films German multilingual films 1970s Canadian films 1970s French films 1970s German films