Straw dogs (D)

This violent story of rape and retribution is a masterpiece of thriller film-making, though argument still rages over Peckinpah’s confused mixture of primitive machismo and contemptuous elitism. David (Dustin Hoffman), a young American professor, moves into an isolated Cornish farmhouse with his English wife, Amy (Susan George). Their retreat is disturbed by the harrasment of workmen who are repairing the farmhouse. These brutal and stupid locals alternatively taunt the Professor and are lewdly suggestive with a willing Amy. It is not until Amy is savagely raped, and a local mentally handicapped man (David Warner) is also attacked by the mob, that David’s repressed anger is unleashed and he takes his murderous revenge on the “hick” locals. Peckinpah is arguably the most operatic of American directors and his theme of the lone individual male exacting punishment when society fails its victims was to influence films as diverse as “Death Wish” and the Dirty Harry trilogy. Pauline Kael called “Straw Dogs” “a fascist work of art”. The film still unsettles and disturbs: it’s misogyny is hateful, it’s resolution undeniably exhilerating.