Sweet Movie
A feverish avant-garde collision of beauty-pageant fantasy, bodily excess, sexual taboo, and revolutionary satire.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Extreme
- Complexity
- Labyrinthine
- Violence
- Moderate
- surreal
- transgressive
- grotesque
- challenging cinema night
- cult film screening
What critics said
Critics broadly regard the film as a formally audacious and politically provocative work whose taboo-breaking excess produces both fascination and resistance.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The film foregrounds scatological behavior, food excess, nudity, and sexual provocation as a deliberately confrontational aesthetic.
The women’s divergent experiences of degradation, desire, and communal ideology question whether transgression is genuinely emancipatory.
The Miss Canada storyline and Anna Planeta’s Amsterdam journey unfold as contrasting narrative segments connected through sexuality, violence, food, and revolution.
Chocolate, a candy-filled boat, a huge Karl Marx head, bodily fluids, and ceremonial pageantry create a deliberately excessive image-world.
Films like Sweet Movie, and why
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
shared transgressive art cinema, grotesque bodily imagery, and political provocation
The Holy Mountain
shared surrealist satire, sexual taboo-breaking, and attacks on social convention
Weekend
shared anarchic political collage, erotic provocation, and formally experimental storytelling
In the Realm of the Senses
shared grotesque excess, corporeal taboo, and radical avant-garde filmmaking
Movie Details
- Director
- Dušan Makavejev
- Release Date
- 1974-06-12
- Runtime
- 98 min
- Rating
- 5.3 / 10 (151)
Cast
- Carole Laure
- Pierre Clémenti
- Anna Prucnal
- Sami Frey
- John Vernon
- Jane Mallett
- Roy Callender
- Marpessa Dawn
- Don Arioli
- Otto Muehl
Common questions
- What is Sweet Movie about?
- A feverish avant-garde collision of beauty-pageant fantasy, bodily excess, sexual taboo, and revolutionary satire.
- What is Sweet Movie like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Sweet Movie as brisk, its intensity as extreme and its storytelling as labyrinthine.
- Is Sweet Movie violent?
- Somewhat. Ember rates the violence in Sweet Movie as moderate.
- What did critics think of Sweet Movie?
- Critics broadly regard the film as a formally audacious and politically provocative work whose taboo-breaking excess produces both fascination and resistance.
- Which films are like Sweet Movie?
- Films with a similar feel include The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Holy Mountain, Weekend, and In the Realm of the Senses.
- How long is Sweet Movie?
- Sweet Movie runs 98 minutes.
