Walter Hill
Southern Comfort

LA RECENSIONE

Time: early seventies. Place: deep south of the United States.

A National Guard patrol is conducting a training exercise in the swamps of Louisiana. Eager to try out their "new toys," the soldiers fire blanks at the Cajun hunters, an ethnic group of French immigrants who live reclusively at the fringes of civilization. A relentless hunt by the locals begins.

The peaceful outing turned nightmare is typical of American films. Just think of the masterpiece "Deliverance" (in Italy "Un tranquillo weekend di paura"... as in this case, another example of terrible translation...); while in that film the average American middle-class family-man-dog-house discovers he is essentially a wild animal when cornered, here it is the macho-rambo-johnwayne who is rendered impotent in the face of ordinary game hunters.

The film reaches some horror peaks, such as when the soldiers encounter skinned animals impaled by the Cajuns as a warning. The soldiers fall one after another into the "redneck" traps, devised with disarming sadism. The hunters are never seen, only shadows and noises are sensed, which ultimately drive the soldiers into madness and mutual hatred.

In the centerpiece scene, the soldiers reach the Cajun village where a festival is taking place, and it's unclear whether it's yet another trap: the film alternates images of the survivors pleading for help with the slaughter and dismemberment of pigs by the villagers.

The editing provides a fast pace and the cinematography is truly hallucinatory.

"Warriors, shall we play war?"
One reason to watch this film: soldiers without a homeland exploring hellish swamps, with the guitar of Ry Cooder in the background.

Is that reason enough?