A tribe of primitive "mudpeople" encounter a croquet ball, rolling through their forest. Following it, they find themselves on a vast, deserted Long Island estate. Entering, they begin to become civilized and assume the stereotypical roles and dress of people at a weekend party. There follows an allegory of upper-class behavior. At last, they begin to devolve toward their original status, and after a battle at croquet, they disappear into the woods.
Salvajes, Unter Wilden, 蛮风箭雨
USA
USA
Apparently an intended inversion of Luis Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel (which made the point clearly enough, so why make it again?), this lumpen allegory is simply too obvious when it isn’t being obscure - in other words it’s a smug mess.
The objects of derision are just too easy, although after a while you do wonder if the target isn’t the paying audience watching this misstep as much as the WASPy protagonists.
You don’t need the veneer of the ‘Mud People’ morphing into polite society - and then back again - to make the point that the higher notches on the social pole are often less civilised than the supposed lower climbs - and are just like savages. Fancy that!…
here's a challenge to you: read the synopsis of this film anywhere and try not to be intrigued. try not to have some sort of idea in your head about what it will look like. go on. try it. because i had a very clear idea of the sort of film this would look like and what i got was, well, this mess. an act of out and out snobbery from ivory, under the guise of an inversion of bunuel. an attempt at satire that is so hamfisted and awkward, it's the sort of off broadway fringe theatre concept that most people get out of their system early in life. here, sadly, it gets dragged to the screen and flails…
A surreal satire a la Luis Bunuel, Savages is perfumed with symbolism through absurdity and acts like it parodies the films James Ivory would later make. It isn't for everybody and its nonsense banter is hit and miss (if always seamless at least) but it is an oddity that is worth seeking out.
I didn’t think it possible to make a film with literally zero pathos, I guess I was wrong.
The first half-hour of this film is fascinating, unfortuately it devolves into a half-baked imitation of 1970s Bunuel. Kind of suprising that it was the first Merchant-Ivory film.
even when i saw this at 13-years-old, i knew it was overblown bullshit. but i had to doublecheck because i trust no one's judgement--including past me.especially past me.
poster kinda rules tho
A tribe of "mud people" find a croquet ball, follow it to an abandoned mansion, put on the clothes they find, host a dinner party, then fall back into savagery. An obscure attempt at a Buñuelian allegory about civilization that's especially surprising because of who made it: the Merchant/Ivory team, who of course would go on to make Oscar-nominated realist dramas romanticizing the types of manners this movie so thoroughly savages. Too long, but an interesting experiment.
"Quite nice men turn into beasts when they become political, don't you think? I'm quite sure the world of politics must be a jungle."
It's not hard to see why some lose patience with this film, an outlier in the Merchant Ivory canon, but it's always held a fascination for me going back my days browsing the collections of TLA Video's various locations around Philadelphia. Knowing only of Howards End, The Remains of the Day, and the like, seeing the box art for Savages nestled among the rest of Merchant Ivory's catalog was jarring to say the least. Nearly as jarring as the transitions between the black-comic episodes of this film, which starts out as a silent, black-and-white ethnographic documentary…
Tempting to describe this as Merchant-Ivory meets the National Lampoon, since it basically IS just that. James Ivory directs from a script by George Trow and Michael O'Donoghue about a tribe of mud people who discover an abandoned mansion, become highly civilized and then regress back to their primitive selves, all over the course of one weekend. It's a bit uneven, but I applaud Merchant-Ivory for making such a weird movie in the first place. The Lampoon humor shines through here and there, such as in the scene where they dance to a riotous 20's tune called 'Steppin' on a Spaniel', and the title song, sung by Bobby Short, which is hilarious. There may be a message here but it's pretty muddled. Still, it's an interesting curio for fans of the classic Lampoon days.
