In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978)

User Rating:

8.9/10   

Director:

Guy Debord

Writer:

Guy Debord (writer)

Release Date:

March 1978 (France)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Italy | Experimental Film | Paris France | Situationism | Semi Autobiographical

Also Known As:

We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire (International: English title) (literal title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Simar Films

Trivia:

The movie's trailer contains a tongue-in-cheek typewritten phrase signed "God" which says "When I created the world, I knew there would be a movie as offensive as [this] that I would have preferred not to create the world." The trailer goes on the show the phrase being written forward and backward simultaneously on two lines to demonstrate its palindromic nature.

Movie Connections:

Features Les enfants du paradis (1945)

go see it, it's fun

A must seen. Debord's anti cinema statement might be considered repellent in his first film (when it is extremist innovation); but in this one, the use of stills upon which the discourse progresses from the evocation of the mechanisms of the society of the spectacle, the alienation by consumption, the oppression of modern society to the deception of imbecile propaganda cinema, transmitting falsehood, to considerations about Paris, the loss of its true spirit and about himself, Guy Debord, is not only an illustration of détournement. It is a beautiful work in which the relation between the image and the narration is incessantly questioned; the two expressions interfere enigmatically, in a secret game of analogies, they collide, complete each others, combine to produce a third element that a linear use of cinematic images produced for the narration would fail to achieve. Not only the political content is pretty up to date but it is simply a beautiful work of modern visual poetry.