Deliverance

John Boorman, USA, 1972, DCP, 2.35, colour, 110′

nedelja 21. 9. / 19.00 / Kinodvor

When ‘a bad day for an outing’ acquires a whole new meaning… Lewis (Burt Reynolds), an outdoorsman, macho survivalist and skilled bow-hunter, convinces his friends, Bobby, Drew and Ed (Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Jon Voight) to take a canoe trip down Cahulawassee River; a trip the Atlanta businessmen will not (necessarily live to) forget. Just as this brutally violent and horrific trip through the American Deep South will be forever etched on the minds of entire movie-going generations. And just as the sound of a banjo playing will forever resonate with the words “Squeal like a pig.”

Although John Boorman’s great cinematic classic transcends the boundaries of genre filmmaking, it pioneered the ‘urbanoid’ horror tradition (from rural slasher slaughterfests to 70s ‘rape-and-revenge’ films) by depicting the urban fear of countryside gone wild (whatever it may symbolize) without shying away from any form of human violence and violation. In fact, and as Carol J. Clover puts it: Deliverance is the ‘influential granddaddy’ of that tradition.

“Because they’re building a dam across the Cahulawassee River. They’re gonna flood a whole valley, Bobby, that’s why. Dammit, they’re drownin’ the river … Just about the last wild, untamed, unpolluted, unfucked up river in the South. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? … There ain’t gonna be no more river. There’s just gonna be a big, dead lake … You just push a little more power into Atlanta, a little more air-conditioners for your smug little suburb, and you know what’s gonna happen? We’re gonna rape this whole god-damned landscape. We’re gonna rape it.”
– Lewis (Burt Reynolds)