La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (restored version)

In 1972/73, sinologist & Situationist René Viénet bought the rights to Tú Guāngqǐ’s 1972 martial-arts movie Crush. Creative subtitling turned it into a burlesque comedy about daft French Maoists and street-smart anarcho-syndicalists. It was an instant success on its very limited first run. Then, a second version was made: the film was dubbed using the dialogues Viénet wrote for the subtitles, with a few congenial changes by the actors.

Time passed, La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? vanished from circulation, turning slowly into a half-remembered avant-garde myth whose distorted reality could mainly be encountered online in ultra-crappy compression. While digitally restoring his legacy and thinking about new projects after decades of silence, Viénet decided to make a third version using digitally rotoscoped moving watercolours. Alongside this all-new version, we also present a screening of the restored version of La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques?

Viénet’s new animated version screens on Thu 30 Jan and Fri 31 Jan.

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