Themroc

This is mainly noted for having no intelligible dialogue throughout: given its considerable length (105 minutes) and essential plotlessness, though, the series of grunts, growls, groans and other gibberish uttered by all the characters involved does become wearying after a while. Nevertheless, it's a good example of the risks that film-makers were willing to take (and generally manage to pull off) during this most creative era in World Cinema; curiously enough, for being virtually a Silent film with barely established characters, this has one of the longest cast lists I've ever seen! THEMROC revolves around a laborer (Michel Piccoli) who goes berserk after getting the sack from work: he sleeps with his sister and destroys his apartment and, after the initial astonishment, his neighbors get the same anarchic bug. This streak of non-conformism also extends to sex (with plenty of non-graphic nudity on display), as Piccoli contrives to elicit uninhibited behavior from many of the females (be they nubile or frustrated) around him – including the secretary, Marilu' Tolo, he had been caught unwittingly peeping on and subsequently seduced. Despite the occasional brutality, police intervention in the matter largely proves ineffectual. Though the point of it all is obscure – unless it's that one needs to revert to some form of primeval state in order to survive the exigencies of the modern world – a handful of situations which crop up are definitely amusing: Piccoli and policeman Patrick Dewaere engaging in a tit-for-tat routine while the latter is rebuilding the façade of his apartment; feeling liberated, a victimized wife tries to assert herself and finally escapes her husband's tyranny through the window when he's not looking; a man spends practically the entire film lovingly washing his car but, then, at the very end he joins in the chaos by nonchalantly taking a sledge-hammer to it. Still, when all is said and done, the best thing about the film is its extraordinary fragmented editing.

A great film. Woefully cheap. Blissfully purposeful. Knows exactly what it thinks and says it with brutal clarity and biting humour, all shot in a ragged verité style that seems strangely contemporary. A factory worker goes off his trolley, throws society's rulebook out of the window and reverts to being a caveman. And that's about it - talk about a high concept! There's no dialogue, only gibberish and grunts, but, incredibly, it works. It's easy not to like this film, but hard not to be impressed by it. Check it out for yourself and see.

This film is hilarious. It is inspiring. It captures the absurdity of everyday life in a repressive social order, and portrays the infectious poetic revolt of one man who "goes mad" against authority in every form.

It's interesting that the strategy of liberation in the film revolves around a very personal and playful attack on the architecture most immediate to our lives. This destruction and transformation of space is accompanied by a kind of sexual revolution, disrupting bourgeois family dynamics in a contagious way. Readers may recognize the resonance of these themes with the theory and agitation of the Situationist International, the revolutionary / avant-garde organization credited with sparking the revolt of May 1968 in France. Five years previous to Themroc's release, millions of people actually did occupy public spaces including universities and factories, creating "passionally superior ambiances" in many cases, armed to a significant extent with Situationist ideas, graffiti slogans from which plastered Paris.

Not that seeing Themroc is any substitute for actively engaging the rigorous revolutionary theory of the S.I. (see www.bopsecrets.org). But the film is in a way a dream-like rendition of the Situationist vision of changing life. And in fact, there is a passing reference to Themroc in "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?", a film by Situationist René Vienet: when the hero of that film is confronting the "bureaucrats", some onlookers comment something to the effect that "wow, that guy must have seen Themroc."

A factory worker who, one morning, fed up with the routine of his work, decides to abandon the conventions of civilization and live primitively in the city kind of human caveman, expressing himself through grunts. He expresses dehumanization through routine and anarchism signifying the return of the human being, who rejects modern society from its root, to its primitive nature is explained by the 'representation' of wolves, hunts, and ultimately howling wolves.

Directed by truck-driver-turned-filmmaker Claude Faraldo, a French film composed entirely of nonsensical dialogue which is completely bizarre, but weirdly intriguing. The film works as absurd comedy and social criticism at the same time. Pure anarchism and demolition of the values of the modern world through a wild surreal mockery, sounding like a Grindcore album in it's runtime.

Among the roles of Michel Piccoli's impressive career in theatre and cinema, my all-time favourite remains the "THEMROC" (1973) who constantly cries out, growls, screams and repeats incomprehensible acts and vandalism as if he wanted to explode the hypocritical harmony of modern society. RIP Michel Piccoli.

I saw this movie while I was living in Germany in 1975 and absolutely LOVED it - but of course, that was 25 years ago. I've searched in vain for it since, I don't think it's ever been shown in the States.

Note to the distributor: there's an opportunity for it in the art houses on this side of the Atlantic - granted Americans are generally much more prudish than Europeans, but I think we're sufficiently post-PC (politically correct) that it would have a chance at a good reception.