I always tried to find and watch revolutionary films, fresh and absolutely original. Which is very hard to find. But not impossible. Who seeks finds! And I found this Themroc (1973), directed by Claude Faraldo. A true challenge to make a feature film without any bit of dialogue, only moans, howls, whimpers and a lot of belching, roar and shouting. Michel Piccoli, who is an excellent actor, is the perfect choice for the character that gives the title of the film. That same year, 1973, Piccoli played himself in Marco Ferreri's masterpiece, La Grande Bouffe. Both characters have something in common, that unique and complete naturalness of the actor. All the other actors (including Miou-Miou, Coluche) are very good, specially in the way they express themselves in sulking French. It is still a movie for a certain category of viewers, those incorrigible fools or refined connoisseurs.

A modern man turning into a caveman, and it's not related to Encino Man? Count me in. The first time I heard about Themroc it immediately spoke to me. I find the idea of a person re-evolving back into his previous state pretty damn cool. And when you see the cover with Themroc screaming, you know this could be a pretty good movie. Actually it was a very good movie.If you haven't read anything about Themroc, the story is about a man who after years of the same daily routine is changing in a pretty bizarre way. His day usually starts this way: Wakes up, makes coffee, sees his mother(?) point at the clock telling him to get a move on, sees a girl (no idea the relation) naked, walks down his steps always passing the same attractive woman, rides his bike to work, hits the work locker room and begins his day. Well, the day starts off the same but Themroc(?) has this little cough going on, but isn't really a clue to him getting a cold, but actually the start of him reverting back to caveman ways. Eventually the cough turns into yells and groans. What follows is an entertaining look at how this modern caveman interacts with people and his surroundings.Going into Themroc I didn't know that much about how the story would play. I kinda expected a dark film with more violence, but what you really get is a dark comedy, with more sexual themes than violent ones. Unfortunately Themroc suffers from repetitiveness. The movie slightly drags in a few scenes, but since the movie's idea is so unique you're always expecting something surprising to happen. You do get a few nice surprises, but you also do feel a sense of repetition. Also the approach to showing a modern caveman in this manner would cause massive chaos and would be dealt with in a much more harsh manner. And during the film I thought to myself a lot that it's pretty unrealistic, but for the ending to work, it had to go this way. And that's fine with me.Themroc was well worth the wait. When he's making that change into the Caveman state, and he's about half way there, so he's groaning/grunting and yelling, but at the same time he's still attempting to be civilized. That stuff is pretty damn funny. Overall Themroc is a unique flick that most movie buffs should check out. It's entertaining, funny, well-acted and definitely different. If you get the chance to see this rare gem, check it out.

This film is hilarious. It is inspiring. It captures the absurdity of everyday life in a repressive social order, and portrays the infectious poetic revolt of one man who "goes mad" against authority in every form.It's interesting that the strategy of liberation in the film revolves around a very personal and playful attack on the architecture most immediate to our lives. This destruction and transformation of space is accompanied by a kind of sexual revolution, disrupting bourgeois family dynamics in a contagious way. Readers may recognize the resonance of these themes with the theory and agitation of the Situationist International, the revolutionary / avant-garde organization credited with sparking the revolt of May 1968 in France. Five years previous to Themroc's release, millions of people actually did occupy public spaces including universities and factories, creating "passionally superior ambiances" in many cases, armed to a significant extent with Situationist ideas, graffiti slogans from which plastered Paris.Not that seeing Themroc is any substitute for actively engaging the rigorous revolutionary theory of the S.I. (see www.bopsecrets.org). But the film is in a way a dream-like rendition of the Situationist vision of changing life. And in fact, there is a passing reference to Themroc in "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?", a film by Situationist René Vienet: when the hero of that film is confronting the "bureaucrats", some onlookers comment something to the effect that "wow, that guy must have seen Themroc."

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