“The genuine satire has to succeed on two levels: it has to be subtly funny, without ridiculing its inspiration, and it has to be a good enough example of the genre it is kidding to stand up to the particular demands of that sort of film....” William K. Everson
Hallelujah the Hills is an art film and a satire on art films. It combines high comedy with lyrical imagery, while delivering a short history of the cinema by alluding to everyone from Mack Sennett to François Truffaut. In telling the story of two men in love with one woman who deceives them both, filmmaker Adolfas Mekas predates Buñuel's Obscure Object of Desire by 14 years in having the woman played by two actresses. The men recall her, Marienbad--style, while on a camping trip in Vermont. Mekas, who with his brother Jonas was one of the founders of the “New American Cinema Group” and an editor of Film Culture, never misses a chance to pay homage to previous cinematic moments, conventions and genres in portraying the comic adventures of the two campers--Jules and Jim cum Laurel and Hardy--interspersed with their memories of a shared, seven-year-long passion. Hallelujah the Hills enjoyed a popular theatrical release here and even greater popularity in France, where it was a highlight of the 1963 Cannes Film Festival Critics Week.