This movie is wild. This movie is WILD.
And I am not entirely sure what that means? I am not sure if I liked it? I am so confused? Why can’t I stop talking in questions?
Right from the very first scene, we find ourselves at the centre of meat industry, the slaughterhouse. It becomes clear immediately there is human in the meat. Meat is the centre of the story, too, and the people involved in this business are portrayed as scary and disgusting, they’re the villains. (As a vegan, previously vegetarian-since-childhood, I did not mind this). When Lee Marvin (our leading man) arrives at a barn where the story takes us, he not only sees the literal meat, but also the metaphorical one — young girls, naked and drugged, in the animal enclosures, auctioned off.
One of those girls is none other than Sissy Spacek who begs for help. She is beautiful, she is pure, she is the archetypal child-woman who needs the man’s protection. I don’t even necessarily mean that it’s morally “wrong” to have a character like that in this particular movie, but some of the scenes between her and Marvin might seem a bit uncomfortable. It has shades of Taxi Driver.
There are some fascinating visuals in this movie, some of them bordering on absurd (like the orchestra speeding down the street in a car, playing their music). The farming equipment is shown as a slasher movie villain in parts. Sissy Spacek wears see-through top in an elegant restaurant. There is a lot going on.
I don’t know if what is being critiqued here is the meat industry in itself, or if it is a look on gluttony and abuse in general. I kind of prefer the former, makes for a more unusual and bolder story. I don’t think the setting of this crime, mob story is incidental.
Swingin' at the Seance 