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Sweet Movie

Canada, West Germany, France

1974

98 Min
Color
1.66:1
French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, English
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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DIR Dušan Makavejev

EXEC Helène Vager

PROD Richard Hellman, Vincent Malle

SCR Dušan Makavejev

DP Pierre Lhomme

CAST Carole Laure, Pierre Clémenti, Anna Prucnal, Sami Frey, Jane Mallet, Marpessa Dawn, Otto Mühl, Roy Callender, John Vernon

ED Yann Dedet

MUSIC Manos Hatzidakis

AFI FEST (Retrospective), Cannes (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs)

Synopsis

Pushing his themes of sexual liberation to their boiling point, Yugoslavian art-house provocateur Dušan 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 exemplar of the envelope pushing of 1970s cinema. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Dušan Makavejev

Dusan Makavejev, the most prominent director in new Yugoslav cinema is internationally recognized for his passionate, daring films that blend fiction with reality, and drama with humor. Many of these films contain experimental elements and were considered controversial for their eroticism and sharp criticism of Eastern European politics. Makavejev began making short films during the ‘50s just after he studied psychology at Belgrade University; he then went on to become active in several film societies and festivals while studying direction at the Academy for Radio, Television, and Film. He continued making shorts and documentaries for both Zagreb and Avala studios until the early ’60s. His interest in documentaries can still be see in his later fictional features. Makavejev’s first three features — Man Is Not a Bird (1966), Love Affair (1967), and Innocence Unprotected (1968) — won him international acclaim. In 1971, his fictionalized chronicle of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, WR: Mysteries… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 46 wall posts.
Picture of Frankly, Mr. Shankly

Frankly, Mr. Shankly

16Apr13

It's finger-licking good.

Picture of a zul

a zul

28Jan13

"Let us think of these things always and speak of them never."

Picture of Nicole86

Nicole86

12Jan13

Really interesting article on this move;http://sensesofcinema.com/2008/feature-articles/sweet-movie-mortimer/

soiwaswrong, a zul

  • Picture of soiwaswrong

    soiwaswrong

    7Feb13

    Maybe I need to read this first so that I can realize and understand the film.. Thanks for this!!!

  • Picture of Nicole86

    Nicole86

    7Feb13

    Yeah I quite didn't understand the film myself until I started reading up on it.

Picture of Rafael Romão

Rafael Romão

15Dec12

Um retrato sóbrio das sexualidades humanas!

Related Films

Fans

Displaying 5 of 576 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

The Forgotten: The Perishables

By David Cairns on May 21, 2009

VINYL FLOORING Robert Freeman's 1968 "film" The Touchables never had any reason to exist except to capture some cellophane idea of the zeitgeist

read article

Lists

Displaying 5 of 141 lists.

Reviews

Displaying 4 of 7

SWEET HABITS IN "SWEET MOVIE"

By Bobby Wise on January 15, 2011

I don’t feel “Sweet Movie” is full of death, in the sense that this may be the overpowering conceit of the film. However, the fact of the matter is that “the world is full of corpses” as Sailor Potemkin…  read review

Sweet Movie

By Gino on June 24, 2010

“Thinking can sometimes be a very dangerous exercise.” These are true words taken right out of Sweet Movie’s context, and pretty much sum up the entire Film. Sweet Movie starts out in a dream like…  read review

Shock Values

By richmon​dhill on February 16, 2010

Oddball mix of elements in Makevejev’s most way-out fantasia-collage, fusing critiques of consumerism and sexual politics with scatological comedy. However his usually eclectic magpie nest of ideas…  read review

Untitled

By McNulty on October 13, 2009

Alright you film fuckin geeks yeah we all know Sweet Movie is filled with political symbolism and Marxism and all that shit but let’s discuss what we actually SEE ON SCREEN!

1. People eating…  read review

Forum

Displaying 5 discussion topics.

What Language Does Anna Planeta Speak?

3 posts by 2 people 5 months ago

Pierre Clémenti

27 posts by 15 people over 1 year ago

Sweet Movie!

21 posts by 8 people over 2 years ago

QUESTIONS ABOUT DUSAN MAKAVEJEV/ NAGISA OSHIMA

9 posts by 7 people almost 3 years ago

Perversity Is a Matter of Perspective

39 posts by 16 people almost 5 years ago

DVD

Buy the DVD from The Criterion Collection.