7. Sweet Movie (1974)
Why it's controversial: Politically-tinged Slavic sexual shenanigans directed by Dusan Makavejev (the man behind similarly controversial political-sexual picture WR: Mysteries of the Organism). The film follows the fate of two women - a Canadian beauty queen who represents a capitalist commodity, and Anna - a failed communist revolutionary. So why is this film controversial. My goodness, I could talk about this film all night because it is my favourite film of all time but I will be brief. Miss Canada is subject to all sorts of degradation. Her husband has a golden willy (he is the world's richest man) and gives her a golden shower on their honeymoon night. He orders her to be killed. A super muscled well hung black man turns her into a bit of a sex toy and then puts her into a suitcase where she ends up on the Eiffel Tower. She gets out of the suitcase and falls in lust at first sight with a famous Mexican singer who is being filmed. He feels the same way and they have sex against a pillar. Unfortunately a group of nuns walk by and Miss Canada's vaginal muscles freeze - locking her and the Mexican guy together. They get carried into a restaurant and get unlocked. Miss Canada goes into a catatonic state. She is adopted by a commune of sexually liberated people who hold a meal with Otto Muehl, the famous Vienna Aktionist. Everyone vomits, pees and poohs all over the place and all over each other. Miss Canada is mute but she is cuddling some guy's willy tenderly. At the end of the film, she is shooting an advert for chocolate, cavorting naked in a huge pool of liquid chocolate. Anna sails down the river on a boat with Lenin as its figurehead. A young man on a bike called Potemkin joins her and they have sex on the boat in full view of everyone. Anna brings young boys onto the boat and performs a striptease in front of them. The boat is full of sugar and sweets. She stabs Potemkin to death while they are having sex. He dies laughing. At the end of the film, Anna is seen to be arrested as the bodies of the dead boys she flirted with are recovered from her ship. In a bizarre twist these boys come to life again. Vive la revolution!
Why it's good: Sweet Movie is unlike any other movie you will see. It mixes sex and politics into a heady brew that will fry your brain because a lot of what goes on in the film remains unsolved. Makavejev throws all sorts of ideas into Sweet Movie and when you watch it, you must remember that it is a product of the Cold War era, so its politics may be an enigma to modern viewers (unless you are raving Marxists). Sweet Movie is extremely complex and it has great humour in abundance (such as the gynaelogical Miss World pageant). It is wildly uninhibited, prudes will be shocked and you should familiarise yourself with the work of Otto Muehl before you watch the film. Sweet Movie is layered in symbolism, some of which may seem outdated now, but you will have a blast figuring it all out. Especially recommended for lovers of politics and history, not just raging sleaze muffins like me.