René Viénet develops the ludic and subversive possibilities of Situationist détournement (diversion), a technique for appropriating, resignifying and making images and mass-culture materials circle again with a new and critical meaning with respect to the original. In so doing, the Situationists managed to reveal the ideological workings of the entertainment industry.
In this film, Viénet appropriates Crush (1972), a martial arts film from Honk Kong made by Kuang-Chi Tu, in which some Japanese thugs terrorise Korean peasants, culminating in a fight. Viénet turns it into a confrontation between bureaucrats and proletariats inside State capitalism, between the use of dialogue and the use of violence, resulting in an aesthetically and politically avant-garde Situationist comedy demonstrating that play and humour are at once two effective and essential weapons in social critique.
Reina Sofía
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