Straw Dogs
1971, UK, Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Colour, Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD, Region 1, Criterion, Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1, Audio: Mono
A social horror tale based on a novel by Gordon Williams, Straw Dogs introduces us to a married couple who have moved into a rural house in an almost backward Cornish village. American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) and his English wife, Amy (Susan George), are immediately at odds with the locals for one reason or another - David as the ultimate outsider is constantly embarrassed by his inability to integrate, and Amy as a source of sexual enticement (the first shot we see of her is her clothed but visible nipples). A series of events gradually escalate to levels of hostility, then rape, then all-out violence and murder as a suspected paedophile ends up in David’s house while a lynch mob forms outside as he refuses to surrender the man to the undiplomatic bunch. As the mob become increasingly aggressive the overly conditioned intellectual David is pushed further and further until he is finally forced to descend to the only means of communication that they will understand: violence.
A pretty shocking portrayal of human primordial instincts stubbornly existing in a world where they have been all but swept under the carpet - David is a person who will shy away from aggression at all costs, until he is finally backed into a corner and there is no other option. This is illustrated very early on when a minor fight breaks out at the pub and he kind of worms his way into the background not entirely sure what he should be doing (apart from avoiding conflict). The film caused problems with the censors in England (rejected for a video certificate as recently as 1999), mainly due to the rape of Amy - initially her obligatory refusal of the attacker (someone she had a relationship with years earlier) turns to some sort of instinctive acceptance (i.e. part of her actually enjoys what happens), but this is followed by a more brutal and terrifying attack by someone else that leaves her emotionally ruined. David’s absolute denial of his own innate aggression presents him as a spineless weakling but really he is not so different to how most ‘decent’ people today have been conditioned against surrendering to the lower cerebral functions. A gripping and historically significant film that almost makes for a psychological study on the animal still residing somewhere in most humans. On a more technical level, I think Peckinpah’s visual compositions (particularly as the events of the film become increasingly chaotic) are amazing, as are some of the employed editing techniques. It’s a great piece of work all round.
In the UK there was a pretty good special edition on DVD, later followed by the bare-bones budget disc that you can get today. That’s okay but the definitive release remains the Criterion two disc set put out several years ago. The transfer is stunning and it is complemented by just about anything that can be a considered worthwhile bonus including a feature-length documentary on Peckinpah himself, onset footage and interviews from 1971, a neat booklet, isolated music score, etc. Cinema fans should own this.