NateManD Review of Sweet Movie

Sweet Movie (1974)

What was director Dusan Makavejev smoking .... and where can I get some?

[10/10 · 21 July 2005]

It's almost virtually impossible tracking down a copy of this film since both the Facets VHS went out of print and the Brazilian DVD release too. Finally after months of being on an amazon.com waiting list, I checked Ebay and 1 copy was available. "Sweet Movie" is very bizarre, surreal, funny and at times disgusting. It's like Alejandro Jodorowky and John Waters teamed up to make a film. There are so many strange images in this film, I can't even remember everything I witnessed. The story concerns a girl who enters a virginity pageant and wins. She marries a rich oil tycoon with a golden penis. She doesn't want to stay with him, so he has a muscular man pack her in a suitcase and ship her to Paris. There she meets a Spanish singer, and they have sex in public and get stuck together. At the same time another lady by the name of Anna Planet is on a Marxist ship, she gets kinky with a sailor and kills him while having sex in a pile of sugar. She also uses candy to seduce children. Although she strips in front of the kids, and this scene is extremely uncomfortable to watch; Makavejev leaves the sex off screen as the kid goes behind a curtain. Miss Virginity (Carol Laure) is not so virgin like now, as she joins the strange anarchist sex antics of The Vienna Aktionists. This is when the film starts to become repulsive. They urinate on each other, smear feces on one another, vomit, dance naked and many other depraved acts. Then later we see actress Carol Laure masturbating in a vat of chocolate. Although "Sweet Movie" sounds disgusting, it's actually pretty funny. In the first part I was laughing, in the second part gasping. To top it all off it's somewhat a musical! I can't get the theme song out of my head. "Is there life on the earth?, Is there life after birth?" (sing it with me) "Sweet Movie" is a very important work of world cinema. It is a revolutionary Marxist sex comedy, so to speak. It's also "finger licking good"!