Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1973)
By René Viénet
“Imagine a kung fu flick in which the martial artists spout Situationist aphorisms about conquering alienation while decadent bureaucrats ply the ironies of a stalled revolution. This is what you’ll encounter in René Viénet’s’s outrageous refashioning of a Chinese fisticuff film. An influential Situationist, Viénet’s stripped the soundtrack from a run-of-the-mill Hong Kong export and lathered on his own devastating dialogue. . . . A brilliant, acerbic and riotous critique of the failure of socialism in which the martial artists counter ideological blows with theoretical thrusts from Debord, Reich and others. . . . Viénet’s’s target is also the mechanism of cinema and how it serves ideology.” is virtually the only available example of a situationist use of cinema. Viénet’s’s film is a far lesser creation than any of Debord’s, but still well worth seeing for its consistent use of the situationist technique of — the diversion of already existing cultural elements to new subversive purposes. Other filmmakers have used aspects of this technique, but only in confused and half-conscious ways, or for purely humorous ends à la Woody Allen’s Viénet’s film is even funnier, but its humor co…
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