Kelly WandMan From Deep River
August 29th 2006 05:26
“The Man from Deep River” is one of those drive-in classics from the seventies. It has a reputation that has been upheld not by quality but by its decent into obscurity. I had been far to young to see it in its heyday and lived vicariously off of the tales of others. It has a lot of fans. The recent blink and you’ll miss it release “Vampires: The Turning” played homage in it’s opening Thai boxing scene.
Well, the truth is, it isn’t that good. White arsehole kills a man in a Bangkok bar and flees to take photos up near the Burmese border. A “savage” tribe captures him. He tries to escape and ends up killing the tribe’s best warrior. The tribe torture him so he can now become a member of the tribe (their ways are not our ways). He finds true love with the chief’s daughter who he calls his “Little Black Savage”. Trouble is on the way, however. The neighbouring tribe of cannibals like to fuck what they eat.
There’s a whole lot of animal cruelty and a soundtrack that makes you think you are riding an elevator on the way to visit your accountant. This is also the film that opened the gates for the Italian “Cannibal” movie craze. Those films, however gruelling, are infinitely better than this. There is at least some attempt in “Cannibal Holocaust” and “Cannibal Ferox” to question the racism casually deployed by these kind of story lines. In those films, it is the invading Europeans who bring about the downfall of themselves.
Director, Umberto Lenzi, claims a lot of innovations for his work and boasts about the debt later directors owe to him. He, however, never mentions “A Man called Horse” starring Richard Harris. That might clue you into the way this film got its finance up and running. If that was a hit… The thing is, what goes around comes around and it would be fairly difficult to make a film without any influences.
“The Man from Deep River” remains as a point of interest to genre obsessives and that probably includes me. It is too flatly directed to invoke emotion until the very ending. Maybe Lenzi wanted to suggest that the protagonist was not really human until he accepted his place within the tribe. That, however, may be giving him too much credit.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Totally agree its not a great film but rather a worthy curio. Still has its moments.
Comment by Bob Short
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
The Bird With Th Crystal Plummage and Cat O Nine Tails are up there as well.
Byrn has a post on Argento going over at his blog at the moment. If you want to check it out.
Comment by Bob Short
I like all Argento's stuff. Inferno. Stendhal Syndrome. Sleepless. Opera. The only ones I haven't seen are five Days in Milan and the new hour long film he has done for "The Masters of Horror" series.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
On the topic of Argentos more recent stuff, the only thing in the 10 to 15 years that satisfies is The Masters of Horror episode.
Comment by Bob Short