Vietnam War in the Louisiana Bayou
Walter Hill's Southern Comfort (1981) can be seen as an allegory of the American soldier's experience in Vietnam, although Hill has rejected that theory. Still, a Louisiana National Guard squad on patrol in a training exercise, of which none of them know the purpose, seems an apt metaphor. Coming six years after U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, the film hints at the irony of soldiers on the home wet soil of a cypress swamp wandering lost, their fortune more dire by the hour.
After Squad Leader, the Vietnam War veteran, Sergeant Poole (Peter Coyote) gets shot in the head by a Cajun, the leadership falls on Corporal Casper (Les Lannom), a gung ho man with a mustache and more enthusiasm than sense. Their troubles start when, taking a wrong turn, they're confronted with a river and some Cajuns' boats to cross it with. Most of the nine soldiers want to use the boats, but the two smartest, Privates Spencer (Keith Carradine) and Hardin (Powers Boothe), advise against the "borrowing." Once the boats are on the other side, how are the Cajuns who own the boats going to retrieve them, short of being inconvenienced by having to swim the river? Sergeant Poole decides to leave a note of explanation--in English, not taking into account that many of these natives speak just French.
Nearing the river's far bank, they spot three Cajuns watching them; the boats' owners, evidently. The hotheaded Private Stuckey (Lewis Smith) opens up on them with his machine gun; a "joke" he explains afterwards. The Guardsmen are equipped with blanks for their guns but the Cajuns don't know that as they hit the dirt, a moment later firing back and hitting Sergeant Poole in the head.
In the chaos, the radioman loses the radio in the river. They make a stretcher for Poole. Corporal Casper leads them in circles. though he's often announcing that the highway is nearby. He projects the optimism of a leader because maybe he read about that in an official manual. None of the men have confidence in him. They seek the Cajuns who killed Poole, finding a house with one occupant (Brion James). In spite of the fact that he may not have been one of the Cajuns who fired on the Guardsmen in the river, it's assumed he must at least know something. Private Spencer knows a smattering of French but it doesn't help much. The Squad's craziest member, Private Bowden (Alan Autry, an actor with an intimidating presence that works well in this film--he also played one of the cops on the TV show In the Heat of the Night) sets fire to the Cajun's house after painting a red cross on his chest. Squad members later feel it necessary to tie him up and lead him by a rope as they trek aimlessly through the wetland.
As the Squad travels, they come across indications they're being tracked, even led in certain directions. A row of eight dead rabbits apparently applies to the eight surviving soldiers. They lead their prisoner along, a big man in danger mostly from Private Reece (Fred Ward), a sadistic shit with a cold desire to inflict damage on others. Hardin stops him while he nearly drowns the prisoner, leading to a knife fight and Reece's death. The squad is attacked by dogs, the swamp is relentlessly the same hour after hour, the mysterious cypress trees growing out of the water, sometimes masked by fog--an otherworldly landscape these Guardsmen have no advantages in.
One by one, they die, until just Spencer and Hardin are left, finding a road at last and a ride on the back of a pickup truck on its way to the nearest "town." The truck stops at a village where Cajuns galore celebrate with music, food, and dancing. The Guardsmen in their green fatigues (sticking out obviously, still carrying their M-16s with blank ammunition--one of the men had brought along some live rounds so their battles with the Cajuns had been deadly for at least one of their adversaries) get some food, Spencer dances with one of the women. Hardin, meanwhile, is paranoid and watchful. He thinks he recognizes two of the men who'd been tracking them. A fight follows with knives, then a retreat as a U.S. National Guard search helicopter sweeps by overhead. About to be rescued, maybe, an Army truck rumbles up, the driver a Cajun man with a beard. Are they going to be lifted away or captured by someone in an old Army vehicle? Walter Hill freeze frames on the white five-pointed star painted on the truck's door. This is America, land of divisions.
Could it be that some of the Squad's adversaries served in the U.S. military in past wars? The film leaves much to the imagination in terms of interpretations. The Vietnam allegory seems present, yet I can understand why Walter Hill didn't want to view the film in any kind of reductionist way. Artists don't like to be pigeonholed. The film depicts the lack of understanding between natives and invaders or occupiers (emphasizing for instance the language barrier), including the assumption by occupiers that locals are somehow ungrateful, lacking understanding of the benefits bestowed upon them by a technologically sophisticated society.
These viewpoints exist, it seems, in all wars--Iraq and Afghanistan being recent examples. Hill's idea to put these men in a zone that is not a war zone is one of the film's best aspects. The Squad brings chaos and conflict to the zone of operation. It's otherwise a natural space with people living in harmony with it. The "war" between the natives and the Squad is caused by the decision to take the boats. In spite of Sergeant Poole's well-meaning thoughtfulness in "leaving a note," the Squad nevertheless steals three boats needed by swamp residents, thus interfering with their livelihoods. Occupying forces from other lands descending on a nation, whether Vietnam or Iraq, are thieves, commandeering others' possessions for military use, justifying such crimes by assigning "military necessity" to actions most people wouldn't put up with. Occupying forces are also trespassers. Those who know the land best will always win in a conflict, one of the main themes of the film reviewed in this blog previously, Loin du Vietnam.
Southern Comfort comes across well nearly four decades after its release. The American military mind hasn't changed. What it seeks to make up for its failures, it compensates with brutality. The film depicts a microcosm of war in a creative way, setting the drama in a striking place; an oppressive and haunting locale of water, mud, primordial-looking trees, bugs, a place to get lost in physically and mentally. Keith Carradine, Alan Autry, Fred Ward, and Powers Boothe are particularly good in their roles.
Vic Neptune
Walter Hill's Southern Comfort (1981) can be seen as an allegory of the American soldier's experience in Vietnam, although Hill has rejected that theory. Still, a Louisiana National Guard squad on patrol in a training exercise, of which none of them know the purpose, seems an apt metaphor. Coming six years after U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, the film hints at the irony of soldiers on the home wet soil of a cypress swamp wandering lost, their fortune more dire by the hour.
After Squad Leader, the Vietnam War veteran, Sergeant Poole (Peter Coyote) gets shot in the head by a Cajun, the leadership falls on Corporal Casper (Les Lannom), a gung ho man with a mustache and more enthusiasm than sense. Their troubles start when, taking a wrong turn, they're confronted with a river and some Cajuns' boats to cross it with. Most of the nine soldiers want to use the boats, but the two smartest, Privates Spencer (Keith Carradine) and Hardin (Powers Boothe), advise against the "borrowing." Once the boats are on the other side, how are the Cajuns who own the boats going to retrieve them, short of being inconvenienced by having to swim the river? Sergeant Poole decides to leave a note of explanation--in English, not taking into account that many of these natives speak just French.
Nearing the river's far bank, they spot three Cajuns watching them; the boats' owners, evidently. The hotheaded Private Stuckey (Lewis Smith) opens up on them with his machine gun; a "joke" he explains afterwards. The Guardsmen are equipped with blanks for their guns but the Cajuns don't know that as they hit the dirt, a moment later firing back and hitting Sergeant Poole in the head.
In the chaos, the radioman loses the radio in the river. They make a stretcher for Poole. Corporal Casper leads them in circles. though he's often announcing that the highway is nearby. He projects the optimism of a leader because maybe he read about that in an official manual. None of the men have confidence in him. They seek the Cajuns who killed Poole, finding a house with one occupant (Brion James). In spite of the fact that he may not have been one of the Cajuns who fired on the Guardsmen in the river, it's assumed he must at least know something. Private Spencer knows a smattering of French but it doesn't help much. The Squad's craziest member, Private Bowden (Alan Autry, an actor with an intimidating presence that works well in this film--he also played one of the cops on the TV show In the Heat of the Night) sets fire to the Cajun's house after painting a red cross on his chest. Squad members later feel it necessary to tie him up and lead him by a rope as they trek aimlessly through the wetland.
As the Squad travels, they come across indications they're being tracked, even led in certain directions. A row of eight dead rabbits apparently applies to the eight surviving soldiers. They lead their prisoner along, a big man in danger mostly from Private Reece (Fred Ward), a sadistic shit with a cold desire to inflict damage on others. Hardin stops him while he nearly drowns the prisoner, leading to a knife fight and Reece's death. The squad is attacked by dogs, the swamp is relentlessly the same hour after hour, the mysterious cypress trees growing out of the water, sometimes masked by fog--an otherworldly landscape these Guardsmen have no advantages in.
One by one, they die, until just Spencer and Hardin are left, finding a road at last and a ride on the back of a pickup truck on its way to the nearest "town." The truck stops at a village where Cajuns galore celebrate with music, food, and dancing. The Guardsmen in their green fatigues (sticking out obviously, still carrying their M-16s with blank ammunition--one of the men had brought along some live rounds so their battles with the Cajuns had been deadly for at least one of their adversaries) get some food, Spencer dances with one of the women. Hardin, meanwhile, is paranoid and watchful. He thinks he recognizes two of the men who'd been tracking them. A fight follows with knives, then a retreat as a U.S. National Guard search helicopter sweeps by overhead. About to be rescued, maybe, an Army truck rumbles up, the driver a Cajun man with a beard. Are they going to be lifted away or captured by someone in an old Army vehicle? Walter Hill freeze frames on the white five-pointed star painted on the truck's door. This is America, land of divisions.
Could it be that some of the Squad's adversaries served in the U.S. military in past wars? The film leaves much to the imagination in terms of interpretations. The Vietnam allegory seems present, yet I can understand why Walter Hill didn't want to view the film in any kind of reductionist way. Artists don't like to be pigeonholed. The film depicts the lack of understanding between natives and invaders or occupiers (emphasizing for instance the language barrier), including the assumption by occupiers that locals are somehow ungrateful, lacking understanding of the benefits bestowed upon them by a technologically sophisticated society.
These viewpoints exist, it seems, in all wars--Iraq and Afghanistan being recent examples. Hill's idea to put these men in a zone that is not a war zone is one of the film's best aspects. The Squad brings chaos and conflict to the zone of operation. It's otherwise a natural space with people living in harmony with it. The "war" between the natives and the Squad is caused by the decision to take the boats. In spite of Sergeant Poole's well-meaning thoughtfulness in "leaving a note," the Squad nevertheless steals three boats needed by swamp residents, thus interfering with their livelihoods. Occupying forces from other lands descending on a nation, whether Vietnam or Iraq, are thieves, commandeering others' possessions for military use, justifying such crimes by assigning "military necessity" to actions most people wouldn't put up with. Occupying forces are also trespassers. Those who know the land best will always win in a conflict, one of the main themes of the film reviewed in this blog previously, Loin du Vietnam.
Southern Comfort comes across well nearly four decades after its release. The American military mind hasn't changed. What it seeks to make up for its failures, it compensates with brutality. The film depicts a microcosm of war in a creative way, setting the drama in a striking place; an oppressive and haunting locale of water, mud, primordial-looking trees, bugs, a place to get lost in physically and mentally. Keith Carradine, Alan Autry, Fred Ward, and Powers Boothe are particularly good in their roles.
Vic Neptune
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