Imagine a kung fu flick in which the martial artists spout Situationist aphorisms about conquering alienation while decadent bureaucrats ply the ironies of a stalled revolution. This is what you'll encounter in René Viénet's outrageous refashioning of a Chinese fisticuff film. An influential Situationist, Viénet stripped the soundtrack from a run-of-the-mill Hong Kong export and lathered on his own devastating dialogue. In this "detourned" version, the martial arts school is the center for revolutionary resistance. The devotees hone their dialectical skills in preparation for the final confrontation with the bureaucrats. Viénet's appropriation is a brilliant, acerbic and riotous critique of the failure of socialism in which the martial artists counter ideological blows with theoretical thrusts from Debord, Reich and others of their unalienated ilk. But Viénet's target is also the mechanism of cinema and how it serves ideology. From the first frames when the narrator declares the film's protagonist "has no control over the use of his life, but not for long," until the final realization that "to detourn a film is not enough," Can Dialectics Break Bricks? fights a battle with the commodification of consciousness. On the narrative front, things go better: into the fray comes The Dialectician, a lone martial artist whose skills with theory are superior to his comrades'. In typical chop-chop style, he saves the day, overwhelming alienation and killing the very last bureaucrat. -Steve Seid