You all have heard of my famous "little list" of movies that I want to see but have so far missed. However, sometimes when I catch up with a film, I can't recall why I listed it in the first place or why I wanted to see it. This movie is a case in point and has something to offend just about everyone! It scandalously premiered at Cannes and nearly killed off the careers of its director and main leads. The director is the Yugloslav Dusan Makavejev (although this film was made in Canada, the Netherlands, and other western Eurpoean countries and is largely in English). I had (some many years ago) seen his previous film "W.R:Mysteries of the Organism" (1971) and hadn't really cottoned to it. Both films are inspired by the writings of sex therapist Wilhelm Reich which is probably not the best starting point for any sort of coherent narrative.
This film is split between the stories of two women. The first Carol Laure is "Miss Canada" and wins a virginity contest (!) to become the wife of a multi-billionaire with a golden penis and an aversion to actual physical contact. When she is appalled by his desire to only pee on her, a musclebound black packs her in a suitcase and dispatches her to Paris where she is deflowered on the Eiffel Tower by an ex-Mr. B. Bardot. She then is taken catatonic to a commune in Vienna where she and the audience are "treated" (NOT the right word) to an explosion of bodily fluids: vomiting, urinating, defecating, you name it. She ends up as a naked model bathing and masturbating in melted chocolate for an advertisement to promote the product.
The other woman is a Polish barge captain on the Amsterdam canals in a vessel named "Survival" with a vast papier-mache head of Karl Marx on the prow. The barge is full of sweets and beds of sugar which she uses to entice children (cue paedophile sex -- off-screen) and a sailor fugitive from the Potemkin. All of these she manages to kill before their beginning to return to life at the end of the film, suggesting that "it's only a movie" and that life IS really sweet.
Tucked in the middle of all this is some black and white documentary footage of the discovery of the mass graves at the Katyn Massacre.
As I said at the start, there is something to upset every viewer -- in my case I can't bear to watch on-screen vomiting in any movie -- but being offensive seems scant justification for making a film. Yes, it is a definite curiosity, but not one that I can recommend to you in good conscience.
1 comment:
Ah, but are you familiar with Reich's philosophy which is what Makavejev is trying
to portray visually. Disturbing and highly unlikely in many ways with the very
delightful Carol Laure seeming to have almost a non-responsive role (qv 'Prenez
Vos Mouchoirs'). Sit back and be amused though parts are rather disgusting.
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