One scene does not a movie make.
Infamous for “squeal like a pig,” this story of city folk enduring a physical, and emotional, grinder on a backcountry trip remains as raw, and disturbing, as when it debuted.
At least I assume so, as I was 15-months-old when it hit in ’72, and a lot older when I first watched it on VHS.
The power of John Boorman’s film comes not from its shock, but from its portrait of men forced to confront their loss of control.
They return to the city changed men, their future as unsettled as their past.
