Sam Peckinpah moved to England and explored a story that would go on to embellish his low opinion of humanity and women in general, rape, a film that has very little of his trademark slow motion and quick editing, little to no action, blaring bagpipes, and little Dustin Hoffman finding his primal nature. What resulted is an indisputable classic.
We are introduced to the Sumners with Amy’s chest. Braless, she is quite free indeed. David is right off the bat skittish and inferior to every other male in the village. He is the balmy American. The foreigner who will always be an outsider. In one instant we are told everything that we need to know about these shallow characters.
All our young, happy couple does in their giant farm house is argue over the most meaningless things. David cannot complete any of his precious work due to Amy’s constant nagging and later her dawning suspicions of just what the village hands are thinking. At night, this all seems to be forgotten as our two lovers become lovers once more. So they simply fight all day and make love until they pass out. Romantic, isn’t it?
Amy is shown to almost welcome the actions of the other men. She walks around the house naked in full view of the hands. She proceeds in this most blaring way until her ex-boyfriend cannot take it anymore. He appears at the door when the rest are supposed to be out hunting with David. We all know why he has returned to the farmhouse. The interesting thing is that Amy actually lets him in. He does not force his way in at all. He kisses her. She begins to sluggishly resist. Her resistance builds until he slaps her and states that he doesn’t want to hurt her but will if necessary. Then it begins. Now she openly refuses but is forced down. Then during the act itself she gives in to the passion of the moment. Well, what more could you do? The thing is, one gets the sense that she really begins her objections by the fact that she is over this man and now married to someone else. Only when the second man appears and forces his way into the festivities at gunpoint does the dislike actually become truly apparent. She has been beaten into submission and is now nothing more than a bleating animal.
This is the first time we have actually felt any emotion towards either of the two people. They have been caricatures up and until this point. When the Sumners go the church recital, Amy cannot take the pressure of seeing those around her and those who raped her. This leads to a sensory overload perfectly conveyed by lightning reactionary editing. Sensing her obvious discomfort, David decides to leave. On their way back to the farmhouse they accidentally run down the village idiot. They take him back to their home to wait for the doctor to arrive and examine his injuries. Unfortunately, the man was last seen with a girl who has disappeared. That girl is the daughter of the town drunk, and when they discover that the man is holed up at the American’s place…they of course decide to go and lynch the man.
This is where David actually discovers himself. Throughout the film it has been suggested that David was attempting to run away from the turmoil in America at the time. He is obviously not one for combat in any sense. Turmoil causes him to clam up like a highly stressed turtle. He wears large turtlenecks, thick sweaters, and thick glasses as almost a type of shell to ward off all outside forces. Yet he cannot let himself stand idly by and see a sick man murdered. The last straw is beginning to break inside of him. Woe to any who stand in his way once this has gone. Those outside include the village hands who have harassed our couple the entire film. They accidentally kill the only town official and thus resolve that there is no going back. They begin an all out assault on the house. David is now forced to defend not only his house, but also his life. This is no longer about any petty little girl, but about David’s self finally breaking through the years of repression. He is acknowledging the primal sense of man. Amy is having none of it. David asserts himself as the dominant male. They come in through the windows, the doors-assaulting every inch of the house. The frenzy begins. At one point David plays a record that consists of nothing but blaring bagpipes. This serves as an extremely bizarre yet fitting soundtrack to the chaos.
David is enjoying all of this. We can see it in his every move and in his murderous glare. He bashes one man’s skull in and sees that the man is dead. He then slowly as if in a daze looks down at his hand and at the man then he continues the bashing anyway. When the carnage finally ends, everyone lies in a bloody mess. All five men have been brutally dispatched by David, and the last by Amy in complete instinct. Even the woman can embrace the inner primal sense. David leads the injured man out and into the car to drive him to safety. Amy is left in the house alone with the corpses. In the car the man tells David that “he doesn’t know his way home”. David reflects for a moment and then says “That’s OK. I don’t either.” He then smirks in a way to himself realizing that in the end absolutely nothing matters except that he is still alive.
The vast majority of people who see this film react violently to it, but they completely miss the point Sam was attempting to get across. This is not a call to violence, but a reflection on just how useless we are. Nothing we do really means anything. In the end we are just another breed of animal. Better educated, more sophisticated maybe but nonetheless animals. Paramount to us is the will to survive. We have suppressed our basic needs and wants so deeply that it takes a massive prodding to bring them out again. Once this happens, we discover ourselves again. The film spends an entire hour on meaningless day to day life for this reason. Peckinpah wanted to show us just how despicable we are. Normally this would be a most depressing way to end things, but here one actually gets a sense of empowerment and inspiration from all the madness.
It’s OK.
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