Les Chemins de la violence
Directed by:
Sam PeckinpahCinematography:
John CoquillonComposer:
Jerry FieldingCast:
Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna, David Warner, Ken Hutchison, Del Henney, Jim Norton, Donald Webster, Len Jones, Sally Thomsett (more)Plots(1)
A young American mathematician, David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), and his English wife, Amy (Susan George), move to a Cornish village, seeking the quiet life. But beneath the seemingly peaceful isolation of the pastoral village lies a savagery and violence that threatens to destroy the couple, culminating in a brutal test of Sumner's manhood and a bloody battle to the death. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (9)
This return to the 1970s in the company of Dustin Hoffman and with Sam Peckinpah’s brilliant direction made me very happy.
Straw Dogs is distinguished by its tense atmosphere, unconventional protagonist and, especially, female sexuality
portrayed in an animal-like and instinctive fashion, which typical of Peckinpah’s works and never matched by anyone
else in mainstream films. I wonder why this didn’t get an Academy Award nomination for editing. Was this film too
spontaneous and sensuous, not textbook-smooth enough for the Academy?
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Scarecrows serve studies of violence, transformations of human nature, or layers of fear, but in such a bland form that not even the traditionally precise Dustin Hoffman can save anything. When I want to see a transition of the hero from a weakling to a cold defensive machine, I expect more than a helpless guy who suddenly squints his eyes and starts acting. That is not an incredibly built twist for me, but a deus ex machina in favor of Peckinpah, who can indulge himself in blood, action, and editing.
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From my perspective, this is the strongest film by Sam Peckinpah. It is an incredibly powerful, unsettling drama dedicated to the phenomenon of violence. Psychologically accurate, credible, absurdly realistic, hurtful, and very bitter... A slowly unfolding story of the confrontation between an intellectually focused college student and uneducated country folk gradually gains momentum and culminates in a shocking massacre. It is a film about different value systems, the inability to compromise, but above all about dark instincts and suppressed aggressiveness that hide within each of us, and if circumstances allow them to manifest, they can cause unimaginable damage. Overall impression: 95%.
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Toying with the viewers and their mind is the best that a movie can offer. Alfred Hitchcock already knew that, just like a number of directors who follow his example and try to base their movies off it. Straw Dogs is a pretty rough movie. The main plus is the young Dustin Hoffmann, who transforms from a scaredy young man into a right butcher throughout the movie; aka basic human instincts win over reason. And that’s what the entire movie unfolds from. It has its charm, it’s worth watching, but in my opinion, the three stars are just enough for it.
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The slow beginning is a shame, this film would deserve the highest score otherwise. The final half hour is brilliant and the depressive aftermaths are really impressive. Straw Dogs is one of the most representative yokels-in-action type of films and, together with Deliverance, is one of the cornerstones of the hixploitation horror subgenre – and that is enough for me to like it.
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