6/64: Mama und Papa (Materialaktion Otto Mühl)

To appreciate Kurt Kren's short films, one must consider the climate from which they emerged. In Austria and abroad, post-war conservatism was faltering. In the United States, Kenneth Anger's "Scorpio Rising" and Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" challenged the code, outraging audiences and censors alike. Although they were sparely screened, they awakened a craving that audience were hitherto unaware of, a craving best articulated by Gregory Markopoulos, who said of "Flaming Creatures" that "early audiences were astounded when their secret Hollywood fantasies burst upon the screen". That Kurt Kren made "6/64: Mama und Papa (Materialaktion Otto Mühl)" at the same time as these films is an example of the Zeitgeist theory at work. At the same time, another director working in another country, Dušan Makavejev in former Yugoslavia, had evolved from shorts to feature length films with "Man Is Not a Bird". Although the film was a breakthrough for Makavejev, he would not achieve the same level of sexual frankness, of erotic deconstructionism, or dadaism (or both), that Kren achieved in "Mama und Papa" until the 1970s. In the early 1970s Makavejev made his masterpieces, "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" and "Sweet Movie". In Kurt Kren, one can see a fleeting glimpse of what is fully realized in these films. A prominent parallel can be drawn between "Mama und Papa" and "Sweet Movie". In both films, the naked body of a woman (or women) is flaunted, and then covered with food. Both evoking a similar feeling of nausea (achieved with what may be termed the gradual destruction of the erotic). In their crusade for sexual expression, both directors seem to be proposing nothing less than a paradigm shift. Their destruction of the erotic is not an attack on eroticism or sexuality, but an attack on antiquated ideas of what is and isn't erotic, the comedy of manners that is our sexual etiquette. I write "our" sexual etiquette because not much has changed. There is still a lot of room for progress in the field of human sexuality. Making "Mama und Papa" as powerful and as relevant now as it was in the 1960s

Otto Mühl is a famous Austrian Dadaist painter,who(along with Kurt Kren)was responsible for several bizarre and sickening underground short films including "6/64:Mama und Papa" and "9/64:O Tannenbaum".In the first action he filmed,"6/64:Mama und Papa",Kren's editing leads to many interlocking continuous shots;central takes recur like a leitmotif—circular motion and networking can be observed throughout the film.Anyway,this four minutes long little short blew my mind.It's virtually plot less,but genuinely disturbing and sexual in its content.There is for example urine-drinking,balloon sex,excrement smearing and defecation in your face."6/64:Mama und Papa" is extremely scatological,so you have been warned.As most of the films of Otto Mühl and Kurt Kren this one is cut fast,like a music video and it doesn't have any soundtrack or dialogue.7 out of 10.

Woozy, artful editing combined with unsettling sexual imagery make up the content of '6/64: Mama und Papa', a short film even stranger than its name. As someone who has seen possibly hundreds of experimental films, I can say that I am impressed with how much this one seems to stick out. This is likely almost solely because of the weird erotic content and how it matches the chaotic editing style. None of the shots last for over two seconds or so, there is constant rapid cutting from one image to the next, and nothing is ever exactly clear. You see bodies and strange substances being dumped on the bodies, mainly one woman's body, at some point you see her kissing another as both of them are covered in some disgusting material. It's difficult to describe with words that aren't just synonymous to "gross" or "creepy" or "sexual". Many people will hate the film because of its disgusting body-horror-esque sexual content, but I think that that is honestly the main thing the film has going for it. Among so many avant garde films that are edited and presented in such a similar way, this one is able to stand out due to its particularly graphic and scary imagery, and I respect that.