# Sweet Movie

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{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2016}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Sweet Movie
| image = sweet movie.jpg
| alt = 
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| director = [Dušan Makavejev](/source/Du%C5%A1an_Makavejev)
| producer = {{Plainlist|
* Richard Hellman
* Vincent Malle
}}
| writer = Dušan Makavejev
| starring = {{Plainlist|
* [Carole Laure](/source/Carole_Laure)
* [John Vernon](/source/John_Vernon)
* [Anna Prucnal](/source/Anna_Prucnal)
* [Pierre Clémenti](/source/Pierre_Cl%C3%A9menti)
* [Jane Mallett](/source/Jane_Mallett)
* [Roy Callender](/source/Roy_Callender)
}}
| music = [Manos Hadjidakis](/source/Manos_Hadjidakis)
| cinematography = [Pierre Lhomme](/source/Pierre_Lhomme)
| editing = Yann Dedet
| studio = {{Plainlist|
* V. M. Productions
* Mojack Film
* Maran Film GmbH & Co. KG
}}
| distributor = AMLF {{small|(France)}}
| released = {{Film date|df=y|1974|05||[Cannes](/source/1974_Cannes_Film_Festival)|1974|06|12|France|1975|03|21|Canada|1975|10|03|West Germany}}
| runtime = 98 minutes
| country = {{Plainlist|
* France
* Canada
* West Germany<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/sweet-movie-bittersuess_ea43d4a7406f5006e03053d50b37753d|work=[Film Portal](/source/Filmportal.de)|title=Sweet Movie|accessdate=May 6, 2013|archive-date=29 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161129151132/http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/sweet-movie-bittersuess_ea43d4a7406f5006e03053d50b37753d|url-status=live}}</ref>
}}
| language = {{Plainlist|
* English
* French
* Italian
* Polish
* Spanish
}}
| budget = [CAD$](/source/Canadian_dollar)700,000
}}
'''''Sweet Movie''''' is a 1974 [surrealist](/source/surrealism) comedy-drama film written and directed by Serbian filmmaker [Dušan Makavejev](/source/Du%C5%A1an_Makavejev).<ref name="allmovie">{{cite web|url=http://www.allmovie.com/movie/sweet-movie-v48108|work=Allmovie|title=Sweet Movie (1974)|accessdate=December 8, 2012|author=Southern, Nathan|archive-date=20 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520130312/http://www.allmovie.com/movie/sweet-movie-v48108|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="criterion/552"/>

An international co-production of companies from [France](/source/France), [Canada](/source/Canada), and [West Germany](/source/West_Germany), the film follows two women: a Canadian [beauty queen](/source/Beauty_pageant), who represents a modern commodity culture, and a captain aboard a ship laden with candy and sugar, who is a failed [communist revolutionary](/source/communist_revolutionary). The film generated significant controversy upon its release, and was banned or partially censored in many countries.

==Plot==
The first narrative follows Miss Monde 1984/[Miss Canada](/source/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,{{clarify|date=July 2023}} 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](/source/Paris). She finds herself on the [Eiffel Tower](/source/Eiffel_Tower), 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](/source/penis_captivus). In her post-coital shocked state, she is adopted into an artist community led by [Otto Muehl](/source/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](/source/Amsterdam) with a large [papier-mâché](/source/papier-m%C3%A2ch%C3%A9) head of [Karl Marx](/source/Karl_Marx) on the prow. She picks up the hitchhiking sailor Potemkin (a reference to the 1925 [Soviet](/source/Soviet_Union) film ''[Battleship Potemkin](/source/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](/source/Nest) 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==
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [Carole Laure](/source/Carole_Laure) as Miss Monde 1984/Miss Canada
* [Anna Prucnal](/source/Anna_Prucnal) as Captain Anna Planeta
* [Pierre Clémenti](/source/Pierre_Cl%C3%A9menti) as Potemkin Sailor
* [John Vernon](/source/John_Vernon) as  Aristote/ M. Kapital
* [Jane Mallett](/source/Jane_Mallett) as Mrs. Alplanalpe/ Aristote's mother
* [Roy Callender](/source/Roy_Callender) as Jeremiah Muscle/ Mrs. Alplanalpe's bodyguard
* [Sami Frey](/source/Sami_Frey) as El Macho
* [Otto Muehl](/source/Otto_Muehl) as Member of Therapie-Komune
* [Marpessa Dawn](/source/Marpessa_Dawn) as Mama Communa
* [Renate Steiger](/source/Renate_Steiger) as herself
* [Don Arioli](/source/Don_Arioli) as Dr. Mittlefinger
* [Roland Topor](/source/Roland_Topor)
* [George Melly](/source/George_Melly)
* [Catherine Sola](/source/Catherine_Sola)
* [Sabine Haudepin](/source/Sabine_Haudepin)
* [Robin Gammell](/source/Robin_Gammell)
* [Vivian Vachon](/source/Vivian_Vachon)
{{div col end}}

==Production==
The film was originally intended to focus solely on the experiences of Miss Canada. However, the actress portraying the character, [Carole Laure](/source/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](/source/Anna_Prucnal).

Filming took place in [Amsterdam](/source/Amsterdam), [Montréal](/source/Montr%C3%A9al), [Paris](/source/Paris) and [Germany](/source/Germany).

==Reception==
The film generated significant controversy upon its release, with scenes of [coprophilia](/source/coprophilia), [emetophilia](/source/emetophilia), implied [child molestation](/source/child_molestation), and footage of real-life remains of the Polish [Katyn Massacre](/source/Katyn_Massacre) victims. The 5 April 1976 issue of ''[Time](/source/Time_(magazine))'' mentioned ''Sweet Movie'' as an example of the "porno plague" allegedly spreading in the United States.<ref>{{cite book|title=Terror and Joy: The Films of Dušan Makavejev |chapter=The World Tasted |first=Lorraine |last=Mortimer |publisher=[University of Minnesota Press](/source/University_of_Minnesota_Press) |isbn=978-0-8166-4886-3 |year=2009 |page=196 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7xc0F4Cl8MC |via=[Google Books](/source/Google_Books) }}</ref> The film was banned in many countries, including the United Kingdom, where the film was considered “unsuitable for classification” by the [British Board of Film Classification](/source/British_Board_of_Film_Classification),<ref>{{Cite web |title=BBFC {{!}} BBFC |url=https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/sweet-movie-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0yodm0nje |access-date=2026-04-21 |website=www.bbfc.co.uk |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://bbfc.co.uk/releases/sweet-movie | title=''Sweet Movie'' (N/A) | work=[British Board of Film Classification](/source/British_Board_of_Film_Classification) | date=1 April 1975 | access-date=29 November 2016 | archive-date=29 November 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161129150413/http://bbfc.co.uk/releases/sweet-movie | url-status=dead }}</ref> or severely cut. Polish authorities banned [Anna Prucnal](/source/Anna_Prucnal)—a [Warsaw](/source/Warsaw)-born Polish citizen—from using her passport due to her involvement in the film, preventing her from entering Poland for several years.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}

Makavejev said: "After ''Sweet Movie'' it was as if I had burned all my bridges. I just lost the chance to talk to producers."<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Film Forum: Thirty-five Top Filmmakers Discuss Their Craft: Dusan Makavejev |first=Ellen |last=Oumano |access-date=2023-07-09 |page=38 |title=Makavejev Fictionary: The Films of Dusan Makavejev |url=https://harvardfilmarchive.org/public/upload/print/5ecb80dc01189.pdf |date=Spring 1995 |publisher=[Harvard Film Archive](/source/Harvard_Film_Archive) |editor-first=Gerald |editor-last=O'Grady }}</ref>

===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."<ref name="janusfilms/1089">{{cite web |title=Sweet Movie |url=https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1089 |website=[Janus Films](/source/Janus_Films) |language=en}}</ref>

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the [review aggregator](/source/review_aggregator) website [Rotten Tomatoes](/source/Rotten_Tomatoes), the film holds a 50% approval rating based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweet_movie |title=Sweet Movie |work=[Rotten Tomatoes](/source/Rotten_Tomatoes) |publisher=[Fandango Media](/source/Fandango_Media) |accessdate=9 June 2022 |archive-date=17 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220917224016/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweet_movie |url-status=live}}</ref>

American philosopher [Steven Shaviro](/source/Steven_Shaviro) commented that, in ''Sweet Movie'', Makavejev went where no filmmaker had gone<ref>{{cite book|first=Steven |last=Shaviro |author-link=Steven Shaviro |title=Dušan Makavejev: Eros, Ideology, Montage |chapter=''WR: Mysteries of the Organism'' & ''Sweet Movie'' |page=31 |year=2018 |location=Prague |publisher=[Univerzita Karlova](/source/Univerzita_Karlova) |editor-first1=Vadim |editor-last1=Erent |editor-first2=Bonita |editor-last2=Rhoads |isbn=978-80-7308-564-3 |series=Litteraria Pragensia }}</ref> but the film is "too intellectual to be ecstatic [and] too 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](/source/groupthink).

''Sweet Movie: Poems'', a winner of the 2022 [National Poetry Series](/source/National_Poetry_Series) by poet Alisha Dietzman, is an [ekphrasis](/source/ekphrasis) of the film. The book mirrors "the uncertain, unstable tenor of Dušan Makavejev’s controversial avant-garde film ''Sweet Movie."''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Poetry |date=2023-12-29 |title=Review: Sweet Movie |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/reviews/161312/sweet-movie |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sweet Movie by Alisha Dietzman: 9780807013281 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730785/sweet-movie-by-alisha-dietzman/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=PenguinRandomhouse.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Home media===
The film was nearly impossible to find since its initial release in 1974, until [The Criterion Collection](/source/The_Criterion_Collection) released the film on DVD in a [region 1 DVD](/source/DVD_region_code) in 2007.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sterritt |first=David |author-link=David Sterritt |date=June 18, 2007 |title=Sweet Movie: Wake Up! |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/487-sweet-movie-wake-up |access-date=2025-10-20 |website=The Criterion Collection |language=en}}</ref><ref name="criterion/552">{{cite web |title=Sweet Movie |url=https://www.criterion.com/films/552-sweet-movie |website=[The Criterion Collection](/source/The_Criterion_Collection) |access-date=20 May 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100311215913/http://www.criterion.com/films/552-sweet-movie |archive-date=11 March 2010 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="thefanzine/criterion-dvd">{{cite web |last1=Powell |first1=Mike |title=Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie comes to Criterion DVD |url=http://thefanzine.com/dusan-makavejevs-sweet-movie-comes-to-criterion-dvd-2/ |website=The Fanzine .com |access-date=20 May 2025 |language=en |date=November 10, 2007}}</ref>

==See also==
*''[W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism](/source/W.R.%3A_Mysteries_of_the_Organism)''
*[List of mainstream films with unsimulated sex](/source/List_of_mainstream_films_with_unsimulated_sex)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==

'''Essays'''
*[https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/487-sweet-movie-wake-up ''Sweet Movie: Wake Up!''] an essay by [David Sterritt](/source/David_Sterritt) at the [Criterion Collection](/source/Criterion_Collection)
*[https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6171-a-problem-with-authority-dusan-makavejev-s-art-of-repulsion A Problem with Authority: Dušan Makavejev’s Art of Repulsion]  an essay by [Stephanie LaCava](/source/Stephanie_LaCava) at the [Criterion Collection](/source/Criterion_Collection)
*[https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6268-memories-of-taboo-buster-dusan-makavejev Memories of Taboo-Buster Dušan Makavejev] an essay by [Peter Cowie](/source/Peter_Cowie) at the [Criterion Collection](/source/Criterion_Collection)
* [https://www.cineaste.com/winter2007/wr-mysteries-of-the-organism-and-sweet-movie WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie] reviewed by [Michael Bronski](/source/Michael_Bronski) at [Cineaste Magazine](/source/Cineaste_Magazine)
* [http://sensesofcinema.com/2008/feature-articles/sweet-movie-mortimer/ The World Tasted: Dušan Makavejev's "Sweet Movie"],  commentary by Lorraine Mortimer at [Senses of Cinema](/source/Senses_of_Cinema)

'''Metadata'''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20181205141533/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/485376/Sweet-Movie/ ''Sweet Movie'' (1974)] - [tcmdb](/source/tcmdb) - [Turner Classic Movies](/source/Turner_Classic_Movies)
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|sweet_movie}}<!-- [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweet_movie Sweet Movie] [Rotten Tomatoes](/source/Rotten_Tomatoes) -->
* {{IMDb title|0072235}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.allmovie.com/movie/sweet-movie-v48108|work=[Allmovie](/source/Allmovie)|title=Sweet Movie (1974)<!-- |accessdate=December 8, 2012 -->|author=Southern, Nathan|archive-date=20 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520130312/http://www.allmovie.com/movie/sweet-movie-v48108 }}

{{Dušan Makavejev}}

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

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Sweet Movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Movie) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Movie?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.