Exploring World Cinema #1: Themroc

Themroc (1973) | France

IMDb: 7.2

Director: Claude Faraldo

100 min  |  Comedy

“A roller coaster ride in to examining human sexism, sexuality, modernism, exploitation, abuse of power, banal rat-race & other cultural/societal limitations which restrict our experiences.”

 

Themroc is an unbelievable film. Firstly, it has no language, and secondly, it probably has the language that is easiest for the world to understand, call it gibberish! Thirdly, it has a narrative that will hammer you into amazement and a vision that is capable of inducing the most primal of thoughts even as the film plays out. In fact, I am at a loss about how to review this movie. I mean I can write pages and pages about it but I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to spoil the film for even one person; I don’t want to tell anybody about the story but one thing is for sure, no cinephile should miss this movie as it is one of the most unique, most primitive, most nerve-racking and most brilliant experience you can ever have.

A deeply political & satirical movie that establishes that freedom is easy to achieve if only we give up our cultural & political conditioning of half-measures as means to achieve it. Call it a brutal anarchist assault or a wave of fresh air, Themroc is much more than a movie; a surreal experience of total individual freedom!

When I was about 30 minutes into the movie, the premise became almost clear and I was wondering what will the director show for 100 minutes and believe me, each of those minutes is so insane, so brilliant in the attempt at an anti-film, so absorbing in its anti-social, anti-establishment cry of anguish and revolution, that it will simple take you to your maximum. The minute you think it’s at the top, the film will go further ahead and climb some more ground. The ending is mind-bending-ly awesome and a fitting closure to this masterpiece, no less than any masterpiece ever made, and to me personally, this has become one the best I have ever seen. Watch this right away, even if only for Michel Piccoli’s incredible, speechless, worthy-of-any-award-in-the-world performance. Ravishing masterpiece.

—

Sources: [1], [2]

—

Further Tripping:

Check out the trailer here:

Full movie available here: