Shaking the Foundations

A visual tribute to Fists in the Pocket (1965)

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"From the moment Lou Castel literally falls from the sky into the film, one knows that one has signed up for one darn crazy ride. Of all the films in the collection this is the one that spells y-o-u-t-h with the greatest virulence. It captures its never abetted sense of social claustrophobia and, its consequence, its recurrent fantasies of murder and mayhem. For anyone, anywhere, at any time, who uttered, 'Families, I hate you!' this film should be the Bible. Nervy, hilarious, and bleaker than bleak, it manages to make you believe the impossible, namely that a filmmaker could take a trip on the Rimbaud side of the street and not come out looking ridiculous. And, as an added bonus, for those who want to understand the sixties beyond the banalities that are ritually uttered about them, every scene of Fists in the Pocket, with the convulsive beauty of its framing and composition, amply proves how much this period was made by people so steeped in classical culture that they fantasized it could be solid beyond its fragility, shaking it to the core and ultimately ushering in a world they could themselves hardly live in."

-Jean-Pierre Gorin

*To find out more about the movie, read my review for the "Sunday Matinee" series.

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