doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

CAN DIALECTICS BREAK BRICKS? * 1973 * La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? * Directed by René Viénet * 90 minutes * In French with English subtitles

This is a movie we wanted to screen for ages - after all, we even named this cinema-night after it. But all of the available copies were so terrible... muddy vhs tape transfers that were virtually unwatchable and took all the joy out of the experience. But now it has finally been restored in its full color glory.

Back in the mid-60s in France there was a group of post-artists that called themselves Situationists. One thing they observed was how even the most radical ideas can be transformed into harmless commercial products by the power of modern marketing. But then they thought - why not reverse the process? Why can't we take some banal commercial products and turn them into something subversive, alive and meaningful again?
 
A great example of the wild, sly humor of May 68 can be seen in this delirious flick. The situationist collaborator René Viénet took a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts film called Crush, and replaced the entire soundtrack with his own narration and dialogue. The new dubbed soundtrack he added changes everything, turning the kung-fu film into a politically-charged struggle about gender equality, the alienation of consumer society, the Paris Commune and post-Marxist political theory. And it's all done with a razor-sharp sense of humor, because joy was part of their ammunition. The new script is witty and snappy. At one point one of the characters asks "What the hell was the original film about anyway?"
 
To do the new voices on the soundtrack René Viénet brought in some members of the satirical Café de la Gare Theatre group, including the legendary Patrick Dewaere. The finished film is a riot, but one with a message!
 
This will be a high-definition screening.