A political pamphlet that condemns both American repression and the Vietnam War, as well as the end of Francoism and Pinochet’s coup d’état.

After studying at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et des Arts Visuels (La Cambre) in Brussels, specializing in experimental animation cinematography, Guy Pirotte created the animation for Scarabus, a short film directed by Gérald Frydman, now considered a classic of Belgian animation. This collaboration marked his professional debut as an animator. Between 1972 and 1974, he directed La Machine à viande est cassée, continuing his exploration of retinal persistence—a technique he had already begun experimenting with in his student films.

“La Machine à viande est cassée first astonishes with its formal brilliance: one is literally hypnotized by the images that vibrate in perpetual motion, made even more striking by an assertive soundtrack. But as one delves deeper into this mesmerizing universe, the content emerges—a broad theme, fascism, fragmented into a thousand facets without ever becoming didactic or demagogic. La Machine à viande est cassée took two years to complete: 5,000 enamel-painted drawings on paper, dominated by reds, blues, and white. Instead of layering them on cels as in traditional animation, Guy Pirotte animated them successively in specific combinations to reconstruct the full image, which was decomposed into multiple parts for the occasion. These images—or parts of images—were sometimes separated by white frames. As a result, the complete image, with its movement, creates a shimmering effect, blending curiously with others at times. (...) Apart from a few celebrated examples like Trnka’s The Hand and Borowczyk’s films, rarely has an animated film managed to convey such a powerful message so clearly.” — Boris Lehman

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