Dusan Makevejev’s Sweet Movie and the question of what is “art”

 

There are some films that seem impossible to categorize as merely “good” or “bad.” There are people who insist on a seemingly bad film's “artistic merit”; in this context, “art” is the picture a filmmaker is "painting" on the screen, or what special “meaning” it is allegedly trying to convey. Most films are fairly straightforward in their narrative, but for many “artistic” movies it is left for the viewer to decide what the “point” of it is. The social and political environment in which a filmmaker was raised—say from an authoritarian country—is often used to “explain” such “meanings” to those from democratic, “free” societies who can tell stories in a “normal” way.

All but one of the dozen or so films I looked at here since July is a foreign film; perhaps I simply see them more “daring” and “artistic” from a narrative perspective than a typical Hollywood film. However, that doesn’t mean that the  quest for “art” cannot go seriously awry; yet even in apparent failures, there will be those who insist on seeing “art” that others simply do not “get.”  Take for example Yugoslav director Dusan Makevejev’s 1974 film Sweet Movie, made in France. Put me in the “don’t get it” camp. This “lost” film was “rediscovered” by the Criterion Collection and released on DVD a few years ago. Criterion, which has been in business since the 1980s, claims in its mission statement that it “discovers” what it calls “important classic and contemporary cinema from around the world.” For the most part that is true, but sometimes a few real mongrels get through the cracks, and for me Sweet Movie is certainly one of them.

It can’t be denied that many Eastern European directors who came of age during the Soviet era developed curious ideas about life and “art.” While Roman Polanski may have had some desire to drift beyond the conventional, those proclivities were held in check by Hollywood conventions. But those directors who worked in Europe, particularly in France (you know, the French are so “superior”) like Walerian Borowczyk and Andrej Zulawski, had visions that could not be excused as “political.” Zulawski, for example persuaded Isabelle Adjani to do this in the film Possession, supposedly her having an “abortion”:

 

 

People can try to “explain” or “justify” Possession's subway scene as "art" or has something to do with "religion," but the reality is that it was meant to be gratuitous and “shocking” and has nothing to do with “art” or religion. While Possession certainly deserves its “cult” status, it really is just a somewhat repulsive B-grade horror film somehow elevated by its European “sensibility.” But if film viewers think that subway scene is repulsive and unnecessarily gratuitous, Sweet Movie is literally littered with such scenes—so many that French actress Carole Laure walked away from the film half-way through the production in protest.

To be "fair," Sweet Movie spends its first hour being mostly just inexplicable before it goes completely off the rails. It actually begins amusingly enough with a spoof of game show culture. A presenter introduces the headmistress of The Chastity Belt Foundation, who is also mother of a son worth $50 million (the “richest bachelor in the world”), and he will marry whoever is declared the “winner” of a virgin contest; the presenter notes that like everyone, he wants the “best,” and it has to be “brand new.”

In order to find the right virgin, Mom’s foundation has created a “system” that insures “triumph of the will” and “no wild dreams.” A network of muscles form an armor that provides a “protective shield around the pelvic region to keep at bay wild impulses.” Then in comes a doctor to inspect the private part of virgins from all over the world; Miss Canada (Laure) has the “sweetest” vagina the doctor has ever seen, and is declared “Miss 1984,” and “wins” marriage to Mr. Dollars (John Vernon, best known as Dean Wormer in Animal House).

 

 

Next we see this weird boat floating down a river with a figurehead that is a huge likeness of Karl Marx. 

 

 

Coming from a loudspeaker is Communist propaganda, and standing on top of the figurehead is Anna (Anna Prucnal, seen in City of Women), who apparently is on a mission to spread the communist gospel, although not many seem to be interested.

It should be pointed out that this film appears to be two wildly different narratives whose only “connection” is the repulsive nature of its imagery, although Makevejev avoids giving the game away in the early going so as not to chase away viewers right away. There is a reason why this films seems to be two entirely disconnected stories; as mentioned, the film was supposed to focus on Laure’s Miss 1984 character, but after she quit the film the story line involving Anna was shoe-horned in, and its political message was clearly meant to be for an entirely separate film.  Apparently the only one interested in the goings-on so far in the second narrative is a young sailor…

 

 

…although he seems to be more enamored with the “lady” than the messaging:

 

 

But then we are returned to what appears to be the Niagara Falls, a setting which makes no sense at all because then we see Mr. Dollars and Miss 1984 celebrating their wedding on a French-made helicopter (the Gazelle, which I remember from my aircraft recognition days in the Army), with Mr. Dollars wearing a cowboy hat, which betrays a certain misunderstanding of American regional culture by the filmmakers:

 

 

Next we see Mr. Dollars pointing out that his pipe is carved in the likeness of Marx, which he was given by a Russian “business connection”; of course a man weaned in a Communist country like Makevejev knows very well that the likeness is actually that of Lenin,

 

 

so we have to guess what is the director’s “point” here. Mr. Dollars is impressed that Marx shot the Czar in the head, which he says started World War I; apparently this is meant to highlight the ignorance of Americans, since it was the killing of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that supposedly touched off the war, and Marx not only was not responsible for the execution of the Czar and his entire family, but he died 35 years before it even occurred.

Mr. Dollars isn’t done with his absurd bluster; he claims he is going to buy the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls, turn off the water, and create some really neat landscape architecture:

 

 

As if to underscore the director’s ignorance of America, the helicopter then flies over an oil refinery, although we are told it is “milk for the entire country.” Perhaps Makevejev thinks Americans are too dumb to know their own country, but his European audience apparently would be:

 

 

They arrive at the “ranch” in the middle of the woods, greeted by Mom and some people dressed in  cultish religious outfits:

 

 

Mr. Dollars praises his new wife in this way: “A purified system for unchecked waste”—presumably meaning semen and whatever collects in a woman’s vagina, or at least we think that is what he means. The film then cuts back to the river, with Anna full steam ahead to wherever:

 

 

The sailor is still chasing after her. OK? Then we are back to Mr. Dollars and Miss 1984 getting ready for the big night. They get into bed, Mr. Dollars removes her clothes and start wiping her down; we assume it is because he wants her completely sanitized before they do the “dirty”:

 

 

I’m not going to show you what comes next, since describing it should be sufficient: Mr. Dollars reveals a penis painted gold, and proceeds to “bath” Miss 1984 in a “golden shower.” Needless-to-say, she was not expecting this.

Then it is back to Anna and the sailor; he wants her to stop so he get can get on the boat, and she responds in a way that should tell him he is better off looking elsewhere for female companionship:

 

 

Another boat passes by, adorned with flags from various parts of the world which we will not see again. Is there a point to this? I suppose some people will think it is “meaningful” to speculate, but others might just say “huh”?

 

 

Next we see the sailor doing something we don’t need a closer inspection to ascertain what it is:

 

 

Anna is quite impressed with this "revolutionary" display, particularly when he shows off the size of his penis:

 

 

Now she allows him to board her boat, although she needles him about his sailor outfit which resembles those worn in the Sergei Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin. The real-life mutiny—which was inspired not by any “revolutionary” ardor but because the sailors were angered by being fed rotten food infested with maggots—was technically a failed attempt at “revolution” which Anna points out:

 

 

However, they are both “hungry” for a “lover,” and she looks at him as if she is “starving” for love of the carnal variety:

 

 

The sailor asks Anna where the boat is going; “all the way” to the “bottom.”  They then proceed to have sex in broad daylight with onlookers cheering them on:

 

 

Joined together, they will now spread the gospel of “communism and freedom.” Back at the “ranch,” the now morose Miss 1984 is playing with a stuffed lion’s fundament. She doesn’t want to remain married to Mr. Dollars, and his mother and an advisor tell her to “forget” she is married, in fact just not do anything “dangerous” like thinking at all. They imply that if she makes trouble, she could end up in an asylum. She is then pushed into a pool where they appear to try to drown her, but then a large black man named Jeremiah arrives, which causes them to stop, and they instruct him to carry her away and “take care of her”:

 

 

Miss 1984 is taken inside some giant milk bottle on top of a building. Once inside, Jeremiah tries to fit her inside a suitcase, but she bites his hand. After she calls him various epithets, he undresses and exhibits his muscles and his large member. Here he appears to be masturbating:

 

 

Next we see Jeremiah at the airport with the orange suitcase, with Miss 1984 stuffed inside. We watch the suitcase journey through the various escalators, which nobody notices seems to have something moving inside of it:

 

 

It is then loaded on a plane going who knows where; we won't see Jeremiah or anyone else from the ranch again. For now we go back to Anna and her sailor lover. Anna apparently likes him enough that while giving him a bath, she tells him he should leave, because the boat is full of corpses, but he doesn’t take the warning literally:

 

 

Then we are shown old newsreel footage (taken by the Germans) from the Katyn Massacre site, where during World War II before the German invasion of Russia, as many as 22,000 Polish military, political and intellectual elites were murdered by the Russians in their occupied zone:

 

 

If there is a "connection" there, we are not allowed time or context to speculate on it. Next we see the sailor getting out of the bathtub and then diving into a vat of sugar and cover himself up with it. It is clear from his various expressions that he doesn’t exactly understand why he is doing this:

 

 

Meanwhile, Miss 1984  has arrived somewhere and manages to poke her head out of the suitcase, which is now on top of a van going somewhere:

 

 

It looks like Paris...

 

 

....or  is this supposed to be Mexico? Whatever it is, nobody seems to notice that there is a head sticking out of this suitcase with a Confederate flag and "peace" decal on it:

 

 

Here is some guy predictably named “El Macho”—i.e. “The Man”—who is a famous singer of sad, romantic songs, and hardly the "macho" type, although all the great things people say about him he says he already knows:

 

 

He and Miss 1984 link eyes and he sings a romantic song to her. Afterward, she and El Macho meet, are apparently overly enamored with one another from a just a few looks, and under the “cover” of a blanket begin copulating in front of everyone:

 

 

Unfortunately there is a medical emergency…

 

 

…El Macho’s erect penis is “stuck” in Miss 1984’s “love muscle”:

 

 

After they are separated, El "Macho" streams tears as he sings a sad song…

 

 

…while Miss 1984 cracks two eggs over her head for reasons we will never know:

 

 

Back to Anna and the sailor. She seems uncertain about the direction of the “revolution,” and believing no one “understands” her and threatens her belief in her “revolution,” she has apparently done some bad things; she again warns the sailor to leave, which he again does not take seriously:

 

 

Then the weirdness really starts. Anna attracts some young boys onto the boat with some candy:

 

 

She puts on this skimpy outfit:

 

 

Begins exposing herself to the boys

 

 

Undoes the zipper of one them, and exposes her private part to him:

 

 

Now to all those people who were “aghast” at Brooke Shields' full frontal in Pretty Baby, is there anything wrong with this picture? Perhaps this can be "explained" by the fact that Europeans have a more “natural” attitude toward sex, nudity and pedophilia, and Anna Prucnal agreed to do this for the sake of “art”:

Next we see Miss 1984, far from being the wife of a rich man and living in luxury, is seen being hauled in and dumped from a cart like a piece of trash,

 

 

and being taken pity on, invited to partake in “supper”:

 

 

Where we observe the following table manners:

 

 

And if you think that is repulsive, it is just about to get much, much weirder:

 

 

I suspect that it is Carole Laure the actress and not Miss 1984 the character who is reacting this way:

 

 

Then some engagement in emetophilia:

 

 

More vomiting:

 

 

Slicing the "sausage":

 

 

Is it real, or is it Memorex?

 

 

Sharing…

 

 

…and if you think the guy in the foreground is disgusting, take a gander at the guy behind him:

 

 

What are these people doing?

 

 

Serving up chocolaty coprophilia for “dessert.”

 

 

The problem is that you cannot simply describe these scenes and get the full "sense" of them. Back on the boat, after they have sex in the vat of sugar, Anna carries out what she warned the sailor she would do if he stayed:

 

 

The bodies found on the boat are laid on the riverside:

 

 

Anna is taken away by the police:

 

 

The boys and the sailor in body bags:

 

 

But what happened to Miss 1984? What is she doing completely naked in a vat of chocolate? Who the fuck knows or cares by now.

 

 

I suppose another scene from Katyn Massacre site will help  "clear up" any confusion:

 

 

We might say the boys were innocent victims of Communist oppression like the Katyn dead, but that may be giving the director too much credit. At the end of the film, which switches from black-and-white to color, the people in the body bags are told by the director “cut.”

 

 

Judging from all those five-star reviews on Amazon, it doesn’t matter if this film is completely pointless and full of gratuitously disgusting scenes, most of them in the last “act.” This is “art” and you are not really supposed to “get it,” like a Jackson Pollock painting, but “admire” its “audacity” to “shock” or confuse the viewer.

But for viewers who think that a movie should actually have something to “say” and not leave the viewer with a feeling of extreme nausea, Sweet Movie is a complete failure. As mentioned the film was hamstrung by the fact that after Laure understandably left the production, Makevejev was left with a unfinished story already filled with inexplicably weird scenes but no real understanding of the motivation  of the principle character (Miss 1984) other than simply as someone who things happen to for no rhyme or reason; as repulsive as it is, the narrative involving Mr. Dollars is the only one in the entire film that makes any “sense.” For example, after her tryst with “El Macho,” why does she break those eggs over her head? Does it have anything to do with what happened between that time and when she was hauled to “supper” in a cart when she was wearing completely different clothes? Obviously this was a part of the film that was never shot because of Laure leaving the shoot.

It was clear that the “plot” involving the Anna character was shoe-horned in to fill out the run time. It is interesting to note that taken as a whole, it makes more narrative sense than the Miss 1984 story line, but it would have made for a very short film on its own. Yet it also makes no narrative sense to include it, because it has zero connection with the Miss 1984 story. A film like Alejandro Inarritu's Babel has multiple seemingly disconnected stories, yet somehow there is a “common thread” that connects them. That is not the case in Sweet Movie; one “narrative” may involve sex and excess in the West, the other something about Communism and mass killing in the East. Perhaps the “connection” is the fallacies of both “ideologies,” but if that was the “intent”—and it is hardly clear that it is—that “message" is entirely lost in the  needlessly gratuitous, repulsive imagery.

“Art” is in the eye of the beholder of course, and I suppose some people would be fascinated searching for “meaning” to explain a filmmaker’s desire to shock and repel a reviewer. For others, there is no “meaning” in wanting to do such things for their own sake. Sweet Movie seems to be a film that once it ran out of "ideas," the only thing left to "justify" it was to fool the viewer into thinking there was a "reason" for it.