Supposedly, the tribe in this movie has
never been filmed before. Eli Roth claimed that he had to introduce
them to the concept of cinema by showing them Cannibal Holocaust.
According to Roth the tribe thought that a movie about cannibals in
the Amazon was hilarious. So, I can only presume the tribe felt they
were making a comedy.
They're
not far from the truth, however. Much of the violence in this movie
is so over-the-top it's hard not to laugh, and the tribe constantly
ham up their performances. Many scenes look like the villagers are
just barely keeping a straight face. One scene even features the
cannibals getting high on pot. This seems like a good thing for the
prisoners, until they get the munchies. Many of the failed escape
attempts are also downright comical, showing the tribe as capable of
an almost godlike level of vigilance. It's like the prisoners are
trying to get away from a cannibalistic Bugs Bunny.
Above
all, what surprises me about this film is that it actually seems
smart. The last thing I expected from an Eli Roth film was a degree
of intelligence, and I'm still not sure that it wasn't accidental, or
perhaps left-over from Cannibal Holocaust
(which I still have yet to see in it's entirety). Halfway through
the film we're told “it's all connected, the good guys and the
bad.” As I watched, I realized this was a driving theme of the
film: the savage, selfish nature of humanity. In the end, you just
have to decide who you're going to screw over, not whether or not
you're going to screw people over.
The
movie also comes across as a giant middle-finger to paternalistic
Western views about other cultures. The villagers of this movie,
while coming across as basically human, are just as brutal and savage
as the corporate forces that want to destroy them. Some people are
already trying to call racism, but to me the movie is about the
entire nature of humanity, not about the evil of any one group.
The
premise of the movie is that a group of activists go to the Amazon to
sabotage a Natural Gas company attempting to wipe out a local tribe.
They succeed, and then bribe the officials who arrested them into
letting them go. However, their plane ends up crashing near the
village, and the cannibalistic tribe captures the villagers, and
begins eating them one-by-one.
Despite
the humor, I will definitely say that this is a movie that deserves a
trigger warning. Anyone who has an issue with sexual violence in
particular would likely be bothered by one or two scenes. To Roth's
credit, the sexual violence is the one part of the film that isn't
remotely played for laughs. It's just horrifying.
That
isn't even going into the gore which, while unrealistic, is still
quite brutal. I could deal with it, but I can deal with a lot of
things most people can't. If you get squicky, this is not the movie
for you.
I'm
quite surprised that this movie has gotten such a low rating from
critics. As of this writing it's Rotten Tomatoes score is 39%.
Certainly it's not for everyone, but judging it for what it is the
movie is excellent. It's a film about white people being eaten by
cannibals, what did you expect?
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