Themroc

In a time when blind respect for anyone with the arrogance to call themselves an authority has reached plague proportions, we need to rediscover Claude Faraldo's anarchist assault Themroc as a matter of extreme urgency. Whether as a surrealistic revenge fantasy that makes Dirty Harry look like Kindergarden Cop or simply as one of the funniest films ever made, the film takes nothing seriously (least of all itself) as it sets out to outrage every convention of decent law abiding filmmaking ever unwritten. It's hard to choose just one pristine moment to symbolise this work - peraps the gendarme's blind pride in the stupidity of his uniform just before he becomes Themroc's latest meal; or possibly Michel Piccoli's curious assistance in his own death as his cave family are carefully walled in - but the work is blistering in its uncompromising joyous anti-logic. Commercial traditionalists like Bunuel may have made newer - even angrier - statements; but noone has ever revelled in their own extremism than Faraldo. The sooner it turns up on DVD, the better.

A factory worker who, one morning, fed up with the routine of his work, decides to abandon the conventions of civilization and live primitively in the city kind of human caveman, expressing himself through grunts. He expresses dehumanization through routine and anarchism signifying the return of the human being, who rejects modern society from its root, to its primitive nature is explained by the 'representation' of wolves, hunts, and ultimately howling wolves.

Directed by truck-driver-turned-filmmaker Claude Faraldo, a French film composed entirely of nonsensical dialogue which is completely bizarre, but weirdly intriguing. The film works as absurd comedy and social criticism at the same time. Pure anarchism and demolition of the values of the modern world through a wild surreal mockery, sounding like a Grindcore album in it's runtime.

Among the roles of Michel Piccoli's impressive career in theatre and cinema, my all-time favourite remains the "THEMROC" (1973) who constantly cries out, growls, screams and repeats incomprehensible acts and vandalism as if he wanted to explode the hypocritical harmony of modern society. RIP Michel Piccoli.

Themroc has been dumped on the market in the North West of England. The Warner Brothers VHS tape has appeared in dozens of copies in bargain outlets. So have Buñuel's Tristana and Visconti's Senso, come to that, but their transformative power may be less potent.

We still await reports that pound-store customers are roasting cops and sniffing tear-gas for kicks. As for humping their sisters, we never suspected anything less of them.

Warners promise English subtitles, which would have been de trop. Collectors of unusual aspect-ratios may care to note it is cited as 1.53:1

It's a romantic tale, though. The modern Themroc would be a short, stopped by a high- powered bullet about half an hour in.

I too watched this movie over 20 years ago - it was shown at the student film night at college in England. I loved it at the time and would like a chance to see it again.

I viewed it as an absurdist black comedy, but I'm sure the director had some serious socio-political axe to grind. I liked the fence painting scene and found the spit roasting of a cop (pig - geddit?) wonderfully tasteless

This is mainly noted for having no intelligible dialogue throughout: given its considerable length (105 minutes) and essential plotlessness, though, the series of grunts, growls, groans and other gibberish uttered by all the characters involved does become wearying after a while. Nevertheless, it's a good example of the risks that film-makers were willing to take (and generally manage to pull off) during this most creative era in World Cinema; curiously enough, for being virtually a Silent film with barely established characters, this has one of the longest cast lists I've ever seen! THEMROC revolves around a laborer (Michel Piccoli) who goes berserk after getting the sack from work: he sleeps with his sister and destroys his apartment and, after the initial astonishment, his neighbors get the same anarchic bug. This streak of non-conformism also extends to sex (with plenty of non-graphic nudity on display), as Piccoli contrives to elicit uninhibited behavior from many of the females (be they nubile or frustrated) around him – including the secretary, Marilu' Tolo, he had been caught unwittingly peeping on and subsequently seduced. Despite the occasional brutality, police intervention in the matter largely proves ineffectual. Though the point of it all is obscure – unless it's that one needs to revert to some form of primeval state in order to survive the exigencies of the modern world – a handful of situations which crop up are definitely amusing: Piccoli and policeman Patrick Dewaere engaging in a tit-for-tat routine while the latter is rebuilding the façade of his apartment; feeling liberated, a victimized wife tries to assert herself and finally escapes her husband's tyranny through the window when he's not looking; a man spends practically the entire film lovingly washing his car but, then, at the very end he joins in the chaos by nonchalantly taking a sledge-hammer to it. Still, when all is said and done, the best thing about the film is its extraordinary fragmented editing.