''Sweet Movie'' is a 1974

surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

comedy-drama film written and directed by Yugoslav filmmaker Dušan Makavejev. An international co-production of companies from

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, and

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, the film follows two women: a Canadian

beauty queen A beauty pageant is a competition in which the contestants are judged and ranked based on various physical and mental attributes. Per its name, beauty pageants traditionally focus on judging the contestants' physical attractiveness, sometimes so ...

, who represents a modern commodity culture, and a captain aboard a ship laden with candy and sugar, who is a failed communist revolutionary.

Plot

The first narrative follows Miss Monde 1984/ Miss Canada, who wins a contest of the "most virgin"; her prize is the marriage to a milk industry tycoon. However, following his degrading puritanical introduction to intercourse, she vents her intention to leave to her mother-in-law who, at that point, nearly has her killed. The family bodyguard takes her away, further humiliates her, and finally packs her in a trunk bound for

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. She finds herself on the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...

, where she absently meets and has intercourse with a Latin singer, El Macho. The sexual act is interrupted by touring nuns who frighten the lovers into

penis captivus Penis captivus is a supposed occurrence during human sexual intercourse when the muscles in the vagina clamp down on the Human penis, penis much more firmly than usual, making it impossible for the penis to be withdrawn from the vagina. According ...

. In her post-coital shocked state, she is adopted into an artist community led by Otto Muehl, where she finds affectionate care. The commune practices some liberating sessions, where a member, with the assistance of the others, goes through a (re)birth experience, cries, urinates and defecates like a baby, while the others are cleaning and pampering him. Later she is seen acting for a television advertisement, in which she is naked, covered in liquid chocolate, striking seductive poses and finally drowned in the chocolate. The second narrative involves a woman, Anna Planeta, piloting a candy-filled boat in the canals of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

with a large

papier-mâché file:JacmelMardiGras.jpg, upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti Papier-mâché ( , , - the French term "mâché" here means "crushed and ground") is a versatile craft technique with roots in ancient China, in which waste paper is s ...

head of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

on the prow. She picks up the hitchhiking sailor Potemkin (a reference to the 1925

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

film '' Battleship Potemkin''), though she warns him that if he falls in love, she will kill him. He ignores her warnings for him to leave and their relationship evolves. In the state of love making, she stabs him to death in their nidus made of sugar. She then seduces children into her world of sweets and revolution, eventually getting arrested by the Dutch police who lay down plastic sacks containing the children's bodies on the side of the canal—implying they too have been murdered by Planeta. The film ends with the children, unseen by the others, being reborn from their plastic cocoons.

Cast

* Carole Laure as Miss Monde 1984/Miss Canada * Anna Prucnal as Captain Anna Planeta * Pierre Clémenti as Potemkin Sailor * John Vernon as Aristote/ M. Kapital * Jane Mallett as Mrs. Alplanalpe/ Aristote's mother * Roy Callender as Jeremiah Muscle/ Mrs. Alplanalpe's bodyguard *

Sami Frey Sami Frey (born Sami Frei; 13 October 1937) is a French actor of Algerian and Italian descent. Among the films he starred in are '' En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud'' (1993), in which he portrays French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud, and '' Ba ...

as El Macho * Otto Muehl as Member of Therapie-Komune * Marpessa Dawn as Mama Communa *

Renate Steiger Renate is a feminine given name. It is derived from the Latin name Renatus. It is common in German, Dutch and Norwegian. Notable people with the given name include: * Renate Aschauer-Knaup (born 1948), German singer (Amon Düül II) * Renate Bla ...

as herself * Don Arioli as Dr. Mittlefinger *

Roland Topor Roland Topor (7 January 1938 – 16 April 1997) was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surrealism, surreal nature of his work. He was of Po ...

George Melly Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973, he was a film and television critic for ''The Observer''; he also lectured on art history, with an ...

* Catherine Sola * Sabine Haudepin * Robin Gammell * Vivian Vachon

Production

The film was originally intended to focus solely on the experiences of Miss Canada. However, the actress portraying the character, Carole Laure, left the production after becoming increasingly disgusted over the actions required for her performance; she decided to quit after shooting a scene in which she fondled a man's penis on-screen. After Laure's departure, Makavejev rewrote the script to include the second narrative, starring Anna Prucnal. Filming took place in

Montréal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Reception

The film generated significant controversy upon its release, with scenes of coprophilia, emetophilia, implied child molestation, and footage of real-life remains of the Polish

Katyn Massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...

victims. The 5 April 1976 issue of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' mentioned ''Sweet Movie'' as an example of the "porno plague" allegedly spreading in the United States. The film was banned in many countries, including the United Kingdom, or severely cut. Polish authorities banned Anna Prucnal—a

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

-born Polish citizen—from using her passport due to her involvement in the film, preventing her from entering Poland for several years. Makavejev said: "After ''Sweet Movie'' it was as if I had burned all my bridges. I just lost the chance to talk to producers."

Critical response

''"Sweet Movie'' tackles the limits of personal and political freedom with kaleidoscopic feverishness, shuttling viewers from a gynecological beauty pageant to a grotesque food orgy with scatological, taboo-shattering glee." The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds a 50% approval rating based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. American philosopher Steven Shaviro commented that, in ''Sweet Movie'', Makavejev went where no filmmaker had gone but the film is "too intellectual to be ecstatic ndtoo visceral to be theorizable", and that "certain questions 'Sweet Movie''asks simply can't be answered", such as whether the practices seen in Otto Muehl's commune were genuinely liberating or forced by the commune's

groupthink Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesivenes ...

. ''Sweet Movie: Poems'', a winner of the 2022 National Poetry Series by poet Alisha Dietzman, is an ekphrasis of the film. The book mirrors "the uncertain, unstable tenor of Dušan Makavejev’s controversial avant-garde film ''Sweet Movie."''

Home media

The film was nearly impossible to find since its initial release in 1974, until

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...

released the film on DVD in a region 1 DVD in 2007.''Sweet Movie: Wake Up!''
an essay by David Sterritt at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...

References

External links

Essays
''Sweet Movie: Wake Up!''
an essay by David Sterritt at the

A Problem with Authority: Dušan Makavejev’s Art of Repulsion
an essay by Stephanie LaCava at the

Memories of Taboo-Buster Dušan Makavejev
an essay by

Peter Cowie Peter Cowie (born 24 December 1939) is a British film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual ''International Film Guide'', a survey of worldwide film product ...

at the

WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie
reviewed by Michael Bronski at Cineaste Magazine
The World Tasted: Dušan Makavejev's "Sweet Movie"
commentary by Lorraine Mortimer at

Senses of Cinema ''Senses of Cinema'' is a quarterly online film magazine founded in 1999 by filmmaker Bill Mousoulis. Based in Melbourne, Australia, ''Senses of Cinema'' publishes work by film critics from all over the world, including critical essays, career ...

Metadata
''Sweet Movie'' (1974)
-

tcmdb Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...

* Sweet Movie

--> * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sweet Movie 1974 films West German films 1970s English-language films English-language French films English-language German films 1970s French-language films 1970s Italian-language films 1970s Polish-language films 1970s Spanish-language films 1970s avant-garde and experimental films 1974 comedy-drama films Films about sexual repression French avant-garde and experimental films French comedy-drama films French independent films Canadian avant-garde and experimental films Canadian comedy-drama films Canadian independent films German avant-garde and experimental films German comedy-drama films German independent films Films about anarchism Films about child sexual abuse Films about pedophilia Films about food and drink Films about beauty queens Films directed by Dušan Makavejev Censored films Obscenity controversies in film Films about rape Cultural depictions of Karl Marx Films scored by Manos Hatzidakis 1974 multilingual films French multilingual films Canadian multilingual films German multilingual films 1970s Canadian films 1970s French films 1970s German films English-language comedy-drama films English-language Canadian films French-language Canadian films Italian-language Canadian films Spanish-language Canadian films Yugoslav Black Wave films