Review of The Committee (1968) by Joseph S — 26 Jun 2008

Brief, surreal, enigmatic British film from the late 60's. It opens with a man killing another in a car for seamingly no reason(think Albert Camus existential murder tale "The Stranger"), only to then sew it back on, to find the man is appalled but o...(read more)therwise fine. The second half of the film involves, people from all over the country bieng summoned to spend a weekend as part of a "committee", where the man who decapated his fellow traveler earlier, is also summoned. Everyone wonders, but no one bothers to question the committee, after all it's a free weekend getaway, and they are told they will make very important decisions. Our hero is lead away from the party which features performances by psychedilic wildman Arthur Brown of (The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, seen on cover here), by an even more enigmatic stranger who proceeds to explain to him, in a 20 minute conversation, the nature of individuality and community, freedom and order, impulse and the nature of the committee. The conversation is really the cornerstone of the film (the screen-writer who became an economist after the lack of sucess with this film, likens it to The Matrix in reverse, and he's not far off. The coversation scene is also paradoied in the climax of Grant Morisson's "Animal Man").

Anyway it's a mysterious film for fans of mysterious, philosophically dense movies(it's hour time line keeps the movie from treading into boredom). The most dissapointing aspect of this film is actually the Pink Floyd soundtrack, which is good, but not nearly as good as fans of the original band(Syd Barret days) will imagine it must be. A good movie, all but lost to the common man before the days of Netflix. If you like political, psychological, and phisophically challengeing films, and "wierd tales", than this is not to be missed.