Wednesday, August 28 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
THE COCA-COLA KID
Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1985
“They call him Whiz Kid. They advise not to try and understand him.” In this conspicuously offbeat film, Eric Roberts is Becker, an ex-marine turned eccentric Coca-Cola marketing executive from Atlanta, USA. Thirsty to tap into markets yet untouched by the soda giant’s reach, he heads to the small Australian town of Anderson Valley with a mission to transform an independent soda factory into another Coca-Cola production facility. Becker has only a month to conceive of a way to take over the small soda company’s facility, but is hell-bent on giving it everything he has with his oozing Southern charm and idiosyncratic suaveness. Anderson Valley isn’t so easily taken in, but Becker’s arrival at Sydney’s Coke headquarters turns the head of the secretary the company assigns him for his visit. Terri, played by Greta Scacchi, tries to ignite a romance with the ambivalent Becker amidst her tumultuous home life and personal connections to the town that rejects his soda capitalist fantasies. The Coca-Cola Kid was shot on location in the lush landscape of the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney by cinematographer Dean Semler, veteran of hit action titles like Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and The Last Action Hero. Here, his lens highlights the glaring red from the onslaught of Coke products while maintaining the beauty of the Australian landscape. All of this was dreamed up by countercultural Australian novelist Frank Moorhouse and director Dušan Makavejev, whose illustrious 1971 film about communism and sexuality, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, was banned after its release in his native Yugoslavia. Even as he pursued new projects in Europe, producers often saw his interest in sexuality and politics and his tendency to dive into experimentation, subversion, and absurdity in his filmmaking as a risk. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Coca-Cola did not sponsor the making of The Coca-Cola Kid, one of the great truly weird and singular films of the 1980s. But by the end of it, you’ll be repeating musician Tim Finn’s jingle in your head: “you’ve got life by the throat when you’re drinking a Coke!” (TV)
98 min • Cinecom • 35mm from Park Circus
Preceded by: Vintage soda advertisements – 35mm – approx. 10 min
NEXT UP: PRACTICALLY YOURS on Wednesday, September 11 at NEIU
