Crush (1972)

Trained Sinologist René Viénet was expelled from China in 1966 for his anti-Maoist sentiments and so, perhaps, revenge was on his mind when he paired the pulp martial arts film Crush with dialogs of New Left critique-speak and radical bafflegab, but the results are hilarious. Can Dialectics Break Bricks?(1973) is a Shaolin détournement of epic contortions. Will the sadistic bureaucrats prevail, or can a lone proletarian hero defeat them, armed only with his radical subjectivity? Or are revolutions simply engineered for the hijacking, just as any good crime spree must end in a hail of bullets? (Watch the whole thing at UbuWeb to find out.)

Man #1: They’ve alienated yet another proletarian.
Man #2: Another one lost.
Hero: What’s going on?
Man #1: This one just became a union rep.
Man #2: As soon as he did, he repressed a wildcat strike, just before buying a TV on credit.
Woman: It’s sad. These bastards – suppose we burnt off the hair under their arms.

This is the most subversive fun on film I’ve encountered since WR: Mysteries of the Organism. Pair them both with Guerilla: the taking of Patty Hearst and GG Allin – Hated (view at your own risk) and you’ve got yourself a heck of drive-in dusk-to-dawn line up.

Can Dialectics Break Bricks?

Old Man: “Certain people say in speaking of revolution…”
Man #1: Lies and Trotskyoid lies at that!
Townsfolk: He’s right!
Man #2: And it’s done all the better to fuck us over.
Old Man: Now that’s the important point. Comrades, what do you say of this foolishness?
Townsfolk: [awkward silence]
Old Man: And you, Comrade, tell us a bit about it.
Woman: Yes, this shit originates in the stupid and obtuse Leninism of Trotsky. But let’s not be too cruel to the grandfather of bureaucracy. It’s so archaic.
Old Man: Yes, very archaic. And just when will this eruption of the end take place? Dialectical reason thunders in its crater.

Little Boy: Hey girlie, you ever read “Philosophy in the Boudoir” by the divine Marquis Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, comrade of the Picques Section?
Woman: [looks forlorn]
Little Boy: What’s wrong, darling?
Woman: The French edition is out of print – has been for a long, long time.
Little Boy: No, no. Champ Libre’s going to reprint it in their “Classics of Subversion” series.

Inheritors of René Viénet’s Situationist approach and détournement techniques include the Sex Pistols, AdBusters, OWS, the Yes Men, and Russia’s Voina and Pussy Riot.

Free Pussy Riot!

Little Boy: Why don’t you leave me alone for once?
Little Girl: Why so nasty? Don’t be like that. What have I ever done to you anyway?
Little Boy: You’ve kept your illusions about Castro. You’re retarded. Leave me the fuck alone.
- quotations lifted from IMDb

Via Dangerous Minds