The Liberation of The Mannique Mechanique1967

"This film has a sensitive balance of all its parts and it is realized with masterly control. Each gesture, movement, position, as well as all of the costuming, make-up and props work in a harmony for this under-dream-world of Eastern magicians. Even the bodies of the actors look as though they were designed for the film. There is odalisque fragrance of incense and kief... and behind that, almost imperceptible, the smell of rotting flesh. Arnold has made a beautiful and powerful film poem that is saturated with style." – Robert Nelson "I've always liked the "Liberation of the Mannique Mechanique"... a heavy sense of the macabre, the mystical, the twilight world. It was a kind of Rosicrucian gang-rape." – Gene Youngblood, Los Angels Free Press. "... overt symbolic content... strong black and white photography. I find that Arnold and Wiese are just more sensitive to a certain quality of photographic image than other filmmakers I can name." – Lenny Lipton, Berkeley Barb.