Can Dialectics Break Bricks?

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then what of a movie? Can it foment revolution, too? Certainly it can inspire a cease-and-desist – which is exactly what happened when local radical bookstore MonkeyWrench Books decided to celebrate the May of ’68 French uprising with a screening of A Grin Without a Cat, the three-hour-long film essay from the iconic Chris Marker (La Jetée). The film’s American distributors got wind of MonkeyWrench’s plan for the free screening and threatened litigation, which led to some last-minute scrambling and an attempt to contact Marker personally for permission. In the end, the MonkeyWrench gang opted to stand down and show instead Can Dialectics Break Bricks?, a 1973 French mash-up of martial arts and political agitation. It’s the first in a planned monthly series that will highlight the universality of the revolutionary spirit; other films include The Weather Underground and, in an October anniversary screening, Rojo Amanecer, Jorge Fons’ film about the Tlatelolco Massacre of student demonstrators 10 days before the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics.

Can Dialectics Break Bricks? screens on Tuesday, May 27, 8pm at MonkeyWrench Books (110 E. North Loop). For more information, visit www.monkeywrenchbooks.org.

This article appears in May 23 • 2008.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US

A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...