Cult Movies (and Not Only): Sweet Movie

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Dusan Makavejev studied psychology and film making in his birth country Yugoslavia. The fisrt period he made numerous shorts and documentaries and in 1971 filmed the political satire ‘WR: Mysteries of the Organism’, which he directed and wrote. Due to its sexual-political content the movie was banned in Yugoslavia and resulted in Makavejev’s exile, which ended only in 1988.

His fifth film ‘Sweet Movie’ followed in 1974. Filmed in Canada, the Netherlands, and France, with additional Swedish and West German funding, the movie tackles the limits of personal and political freedom through a mixture of kaleidoscopic depictions.

A gynecological beauty pageant, a grotesque food orgy including urination and scatology and a death under tons of chocolate are some of the provoking taboo images director uses to present us his convictions. For those who do not stay in the fictitious images of the film the real and far more disturbing content are documentary footage from the aftermath of a massacre of about four thousand Polish prisoners from the Soviet army during the WWII and also footage presenting Nazis performing medical experiments and gymnastics tests on babies and small children. Blending all the previous Makavejef supports his sharp attack against capitalism as well as against the Soviet Communism the very same moment.

Only in 1992 officials of the former Soviet Union confirmed that Stalin had authorized the killings in Katyn Forest. It was early 70s and Makavejev’s native Yugoslavia was within the Soviet sphere of influence. Enemy of any kind of oppression Makavejev sets both the Soviet-style communism and fascism as the two sides of the same coin. Crush of the true Marxism symbolized by the falling tear from Marx figurehead on a ship named Survival. Soviet Communism used only as an example of how an idea crushed. In other parts of the movie, director heaps criticism on capitalist authoritarianism too.

The film follows two plots. First is a surreal beauty contest of Miss World 1984 where top honors go to the prettiest virgin. Miss Canada is the winner and the prize is her marriage with the billionaire Mr. Dollars, the world’s wealthiest man and owner of a golden phallus. Their wedding night Mr. Dollars angered after her rejection and has her stuffed into a suitcase which shipped off to Paris. There she makes love with a Spanish singer and joins an extravagant commune with uninhibited members.

In the second plot an unusual boat named ‘Survival’ is steaming down an Amsterdam canal bearing an image of Karl Marx on its prow. Captain is Anna Platela, most passengers are children and the cargo is candies and sugar. A sailor with ‘Potemkin’ written on his cap, embarked on the boat and becomes Platela’s lover. She treats him sex and sugar and later stabs him. His respond was a laugh as the sugar that covers him becomes red.

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All the film’s themes converge near the end, when Miss World immerses her naked body in chocolate for an advertisement. In the final part, police violently arresting most of the surviving characters and at the conclusion corpses lying by the canal side, yet they start to stir just as the credits begin.

Makavejev’s influences are apparent in this film. One is the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and his theory about “orgone energy”. The theory developed on Freud’s base concept of ‘libido’ and Reich concentrated on its physical expression until he was able to show the relation of bodily attitude and emotion and the route to health and happiness.

Reich’s troubled life was the focus of ‘WR: Mysteries of the Organism’. His notions discomforted the puritanical cold-war America that finally sentenced him two years in prison (where he died after one year) and burned tons of his books. His anarchic influence is clear in this film especially in the explosive scenes featuring artist Otto Muehl and his Reich-inspired ‘Friedrichshof’ commune which in the movie called Milky Way.

Other source of inspiration is the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin and his ‘Carnivalesque’ term that has to do with the liberation of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos. Clearly the spectator can recognize a variety of influences from many others: Sergei Eisenstein and Jean-Luc Godard with their nonlinear montage and Bertolt Brecht and his theory about the “epic theatre” that stimulates the intellect as well as the emotions.

Francis Ford Coppola after seeing ‘WR’, invited Makavejev to direct ‘Apocalypse Now’ but the director declined and filmed Sweet Movie. The music score composed by Manos Hatzidakis and after the film screened in Cannes Film Festival immediately banned in the UK, Ontario Canada, South Africa and many other countries. (Most possible ‘officialy’ is still banned in the previous places).US release was minus four minutes (those containing the scatological material).

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In Israel the film was a ’success’ as the first license braced many times. In Italy Pasolini’s interference helped, and the film remained free from censorship. Pasolini made also a dubbed version which packed with the ‘Espresso Magazine’ and sent out to 600.000 people. According to Makavejev he didn’t get a penny for this but he was very happy.

‘Montenegro’ was the next film Makavejev directed in 1981.

See also:

• Cult Movies (and Not Only): Get Carter
• Cult Movies (and Not Only): Vampyros Lesbos
• Cult Movies (and Not Only): Zabriskie Point
• Cult Movies (and Not Only): “S’était Un Rendezvous”