Friday, December 07, 2007

Hill vs. Boorman

Backwoods rednecks preying on arrogant city boys; John Boorman’s ‘Deliverance’ cast the mould, but ‘Southern Comfort’ is the superior film. Walter Hill’s tense and efficient action thriller sees a squadron of Louisiana National Guardsmen lose their way among the primal forces of the Bayou. Discipline and chain of command are negligible from the outset; on a simple training exercise, a cackling hothead fires a round of blanks at a group of Cajun trappers. The bickering, delusional toy soldiers are quickly out of their depth, hunted by a hidden culture that the American Dream told them nothing about. The pace is sharp and the script is smart. Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine quickly bond as two resourceful survivors caught in a clutch of hysterical machismo. ‘The Blair Witch Project’s debt to ‘Cannibal Holocaust’s faux-documentary style is well known; its gothic roots in Hill’s masterpiece less-so. The enemy is barely seen; it is ultimately the alien terrain of the swamp itself that swallows up the incredulous trespassers.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

NO DEMONS ALLOWED

SELF DELIVERANCE

If you want to get rid of your temper, lustful thoughts or actions or any other demons, you can do Self DELIVERANCE. There are times when there is no one around to help us. It is at this time that we must be able to do Self DELIVERANCE. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we must be able to command our bodies to the attention of the Lord and His Word and take back the land that the enemy has taken.

http://www.demonbuster.com/selfdelive.html

Anonymous said...

After calling each demon or group of demons out, take a deep breath and blow out though your mouth. Demons come out through tears, air passages like your mouth (coughing, yawning, mucus), nose running, passing gas, through the skin, or no visible signs at all. You don't have to feel or see anything to be set free. No one knows all the answers, but I know when you blow out it helps dislodge demons. When finished with each DELIVERANCE session, pray, "Father, in the name of JESUS, I ask you to fill me fuller with the Holy Spirit. Fill all the nooks and crannies where all the demons have left."

Even a satanist can be set free. In the name of JESUS, you can break any blood oath you made with the devil. I read that most homosexuals wished that they could stop being homosexual. DELIVERANCE can change you too. You really can stop doing things you don't want to do (except for paying taxes). JESUS loves you that much.

Start kicking demons OUT in the name of Jesus!

Anonymous said...

Know this - EVERYONE has demons, ESPECIALLY CHRISTIANS. There is no Scripture that says this. It is just a matter of FACT. There is no Scripture that says you do NOT have demons. Jesus said the demons are living INSIDE of you, not OUTSIDE. Jesus also said the demons call your body their house . Do you live OUTSIDE of your house? Neither do your demons!

P.S.

THERE IS NO HATE ON OUR SITE,

BUT SOME PEOPLE HATE TO READ IT.

Nick Talbot said...

Thanks for that. So what do you think about Walter Hill then?

Anonymous said...

I know I'm unloveable, you don't have to tell me, message received...

Honestly - I do not know Walter Hill at all. Should I? I just wanted to make you laugh a little. To pause from all the moaning. I like making other people laugh, because it makes me laugh, too. I do not share these demon- and ghostbuster's thoughts (it matched so well with your state of health, I couldn't but quote it) neither am I practising any religion, BUT I DON'T NEED THIS SADNESS ANYMORE, (for there are brighter sides to life and I should know, because I've seen them)BUT NOW I'VE TASTED TALBOT I WANT MORE, (but not very often;)

I know, I should have started with the weather-talk...er,sorry.

How can you presume that I watch Walter Hill's movies!? (Even if it is recommended by you and even if I have 4 cd's of Iron Maiden, and I like "The trooper".)I HATE MACHISM! (I'm gonna haunt- or even better - poison you with Judith Butler - quotations instead!!!)

Actually, I do not watch any films which are obviously related to war themes, killing or fighting. Films that I watch may not exclude topics such as violence or hatred, murder or death. I'm interested in the dark sides of mankind. But I prefer when it is presented in a more esthetic, subtle and cunning way. I'm much more interested in psychological issues and interrelations and true emotions than in blood and bones splattering around.I rather choose (mostly) european arthouse films than white trash or horror movies, because I like to learn something about human nature and see landscapes (of the mind) to which I will never be able to travel in my ludicrously short-lasting life, (maybe in the next one). And I love enigmatic symbols and all kind of metaphoric stuff.

The last 2 films I have seen were by turkish directors (a coincidence). "On the other side" by Fatih Akin ("Against the wall" with which he won at the Berlinale and "Crossing the bridge" were much better) and "Iklimler (climates)" by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Fatih Akins films contain brutality, but remorse and compensation as well. The ability to kill maybe dormant in anybody, for sure the desire to hurt, but we differ from killing machines by being able to choose between different feelings and nuances of whatever we express. We are able to REFLECT. O.K., the chattering classes maybe less than you or me - I do not want to sound arrogant, but it's the case.

Even if one has experienced violence as psychic violence and corporal punishment,one will not necessarily blindly repeat what one had been subjected to when one was dependent on the aggressor. Because one is not driven by any supernatural forces, nor object to any impulse. I, for myself, do have my own mind and thougths are still free.

There is always a way out, a light that never goes out. I's called HOPE. It's the crocus lost in a dusty field or the lemons and oranges which all of a sudden appear between the leaves of a tree on a grey day. (Of course not in a Walter Hill's movie - at least I imagine)

Or don't you think so? And if you don't, why then?

Anonymous said...

Taken from "The cuttlefish bones"

...there's a lot of fishy stuff in it...you may like it.

The Lemon Trees
Eugenio Montale


You realize that in silences
things yield and almost betray
their ultimate secrets.
At times, one half expects
to discover an error in Nature,
the still point of reality,
the missing link that will not hold,
the thread we cannot untangle
in order to get at the truth.

You look around. Your mind seeks,
makes harmonies, falls apart
in the perfume, expands
when the day wearies away.
There are silences in which one watches
in every fading human shadow
something divine let go.

The illusion wanes, and in time we return
to our noisy cities where the blue
appears only in fragments
high up among the towering shapes.
Then rain leaching the earth.
Tedious, winter burdens the roofs,
and light is a miser, the soul bitter.
Yet, one day through an open gate,
among the green luxuriance of a yard,
the yellow lemons fire
and the heart melts,
and golden songs pour
into the breast
from the raised cornets of the sun.

Anonymous said...

Don't ask me for words
Eugenio Montale

Don't ask me for words that might define
our formless soul, publish it
in letters of fire, and set it shining,
lost crocus in a dusty field.

Ah, that man so confidently striding,
friend to others and himself, careless
that the dog day's sun might stamp
his shadow on a crumbling wall!

Don't ask me for formulas to open worlds
for you: all I have are gnarled syllables,
branch-dry. All I can tell you now is this:
what we are not, what we do not want.

Nick Talbot said...

Awesome. I do recommend Walter Hill though, he's great. He made The Warriors too.

Jeff Haywood said...

I'd plump for Deliverance personally, but I haven't seen Southern Comfort in years.

You're just jealous because of the banjo playing Nick.

Nice blog, came to you via wikipedia.

Jeff

Anonymous said...

The Sunflower
Eugenio Montale

Bring me the sunflower
that I may transplant it
in my soil burnt by salt,
and that it may show all day long to the reflecting blue of the skies the anxiety of its yellowish face.

Obscure things tend to clarity,
bodies fade and exhaust themselves in a flow of colours - these in music.
So vanishing is the fortune of fortunes.

O bring me the plant which leads
where blonde transparencies rise up
and life evaporates like an essence:
Bring me the sunflower,
gone mad with light.

Nick Talbot said...

Cheers Jeff. I was being contrary in a way; Boorman's film is probably better made, but I found the last ten minutes of Southern Comfort more tense and menacing than even the piggy back scene in Deliverance...

Jeff Haywood said...

I'll have to give it another go, because the last time I saw it the world was awash with top loading VHS players with the most grainy pictures. How did we ever live without the DVD ?

Talking of which I've just gratefully received the new remastered box set of "Bladerunner". I couldn't be more excited. Still one of my all time favourites.

Have a good weekend.

Jeff

Anonymous said...

William Wordsworth
Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.