Review of Sweet Movie (1974) by Akhil P — 04 Mar 2009

Not as good as Makavejev's prior film, the masterful WR: Mysteries of the Organism (which it repeats many of the same ideas), but still a compelling and often radical work. Though not as visually dense in its montage style as WR, this is probably the more peculiar (and funny) work; Yet, there is also something deeply despondent and oddly utopian about it in how it replaces anti-fascist and anti-capitalist revolutionary ideologies with, quite literally, wallowing in shit and piss.

The idea, in other words, seems to be that political ideologies have so failed us that they need to be rebuilt from the level of excrement and sexual "perversion" on up. In that regard, it's remains a more idealistic film than Salo (for example) where human potential is merely reduced to eating shit.