Filmanthropy 1: Sweet Movie (OST)

Disappeared from the imdb listing for the film, but Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie was among a number of films maudite produced by the production company, Filmanthrope.

Filmanthrope were responsible for some of the finest European art/freak cinema of the late '60s thru mid-'70s; Themroc, & works by Alain Tanner and Marco Ferreri.

Sweet Movie is, for me, the pinnacle of Makavejev's filmmaking - clever, creative & fun in equal measure. It also documents a uniquely aspirational moment of the continental counter-culture, with a narrative thread involving Otto Muehl's aktionist crew, and a Pierre Clementi who was already the veteran of work for Bunuel & Pasolini.

Composer Hadjidakis was a partisan for rebetika, and is uniquely responsible for elevating it to greater esteem in Greek culture. He also popularised the bouzouki, and was an early champion of fellow composers, Mikos Theodorakis & Iannis Xenakis. Thus, while he was a cultural nationalist, he also did much to promote Greek modernism - as in the song cycles he adapted from the poetry of native surrealist, Nikos Gatsos.

By the time of this soundtrack commission he had substantial experience of film scoring, having won the US Academy Award for Never On Sunday (1960). I've come across quite a few of his recordings on old vinyls, but for my ears this is easily the finest of his works - the perfectly bittersweet complement to Makavajev's colourful monsterpiece of whimsy & tragoedia: a libertarian sono/cine-manifesto.

Music & lyrics : Manos Hadjidakis,
except 4 & 8 : lyrics by Makavejev & Ann Lonnberg

1.Ta paidia kato ston kampo (2:42)
2.Oi paragkes kai oi anthropoi (1:30)
3.Serenata gia thn sexoualikh apousia (3:16)
4.Is there life on the earth? (2:35)
5.H sexoualikh polyrrythmia (2:07)
6.Oi paragkes kai h kefalh toy karl marx (2:56)
7.Nyxterino (3:24)
8.Is there life on the earth? (1:04)
9.Ta paidia kato ston kampo (3:37)
10.strip tease gia tria paidia (4:47)
11.nyxterino gia dyo fones (2:22)
12.o xoros ths sokolatas (2:39)
13.ta paidia kato ston kampo (2:31)
14.h sexoualikh polyrrythmia kai ta tria paidia (3:01)

Additional music : Les Chants Révolutionnaires du Monde – Les Flûtes Roumaines

download the Sweet Movie OST here

... the imdb soundtrack listing details a couple other tracks, not on the commercial OST release:

• "Réel de L'Arrivée", Dominique Tremblay and Denis Boucher
  
  
• "Macho", Music by Pierre Dutour/Lyrics by Santiago El Ghi
  
  
• "Bandiera Rossa", Record: Chants Revolutionaires du Monde

Some links:

An interview with Dusan Makavejev

The new Criterion DVD release - with David Sterrit's essay

Details of the original Greek soundtrack release

Julien Mazaudier's essay on the soundtrack (in French)

... both this, and Makavayev's previous film W.R. Mysteries of the Organism, are informed to some extent by the theories of Wilhelm Reich - principally, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" and "The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality" - some info on him, here, and a hilarious photo, here

Thanks to Joel, from Brisbane's OtherFilm Festival, for originally gifting this soundtrack to me... Cheers, ears!