Based on the novel published in 1969, The Siege of Trencher's Farm, written by Gordon Williams, the director Sam Peckinpah decided, in 1971, to film Straw Dogs, examines the human's instinctive capacity for violence and shows it to the viewer without no type of reservation. Later, in 2011, a remake of the film directed by Peckinpah was released, titled in the same way, this time directed by Rod Lurie. On this occasion I will talk about one of them.

To read the review of the remake click here.

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>>Source <<

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Year: 1971
Category: Psychological Thriller.
Director: Sam Peckinpah.
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T. P. McKenna, Del Henney, Jim Norton, Donald Webster, Ken Hutchison, Len Jones, Sally Thomsett, Robert Keegan, Peter Arne, Colin Welland, Cherina Schaer.

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Plot

To avoid the social chaos of the post Vietnam era in the United States, the American mathematician David Sumner moves with his beautiful British wife, Amy, to Cornish, an isolated town in which she grew up, but her presence provokes antagonism among the men of the town, who despise David and want his wife.

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Opinion

The film tells the story of Amy and David Summers, marriage formed by an American teacher and an English woman who, taking advantage of a scholarship offered to David, decides to move to the English town where Amy spent her childhood. Soon their presence becomes something frowned upon by the locals, especially by those who are unintelligent, who make Amy the object of their looks and desire.

The protagonist of this story, David, is a scientist absorbed in his research, a shy and unsociable person, since he avoids problems and disputes with a kind of pusillanimity that his wife, Amy, assimilates as cowardice. On the other hand, the men of the town, are rudimentary and violent people, with whom David can not get along, so the apparent quiet town, really contains a herd of hyenas that can attack at every moment. The moments of celebration and recreation transmit precisely the opposite under the surface, provoking a series of events that in the last instance will unleash violence.

The film shows what is called a civilized man fighting against violence itself, in a fight that inevitably he will lose, so that our protagonist can defend himself, his wife, and an idiot subject who has been confined to his home, he must resort to methods equal or more violent than that of his opponents.

It is a thriller based on its environment, on its climate, and it carries out an analysis and an exposition of the darkest part of human nature. Violence, contempt, hatred, arrogance, hostility are things shown without condescension, the instinct to show that one is stronger and despise and attack the one that is supposed to be weak is imperative, in addition to the latent provocation, the psychological blackmail, the emotional and mental imbalance, the morbid of the forbidden, produces crimes of the greatest aberration possible.

As I said before, David's wife sees him as a coward, however, in the final thrilling scenes, it is she who urges him to give the savages who besiege their house what they want, in order to save themselves. And that is when it emerges, not the cowardice, but the courage of David who refuses to do it, the strange thing is that at this point, I can no longer determine if he does it for the right reasons, or if he does so as a consequence of the manifestation of the violence that until that moment was hidden inside.

I do not know why Peckinpah had to film this story in England and offer this unpleasant image of the British villagers, who are shown as idlers, alcoholics, idiots, animal stranglers, sexually repressed, and even rapists. Personally, that portrait is the truly controversial and not the violence shown.

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Trailer