White Water Summer (1987)

My attraction to outdoor adventure films is in the scenery. The story plays second fiddle to the cinematography for me. Sure, I need a good story to anchor the film, lest I get bored halfway through, but I’m coming for the scenery. I take to it as a cinematic vacation, where I can be one with nature from the comfort of civilian life. It’s a cheat for sure, but I can’t always be out in the wilderness. Film acts as a welcome avatar.

Mind you, I’m not much of a camper. I enjoy going on hikes, but I’d prefer not to stay in a tent afterward, acting as a human burrito for wildlife. Add in years of growing up in fear of both a bear attack and/or a crazed serial killer on the loose and you’ve got a hesitation toward the camping lifestyle (think of the Jim Gaffigan camping bit and you’ve got my similar feelings). And yet, I’m fascinated by films dealing with camping and the wildlife. It’s so picturesque and comforting even in the face of danger!

I grew up similar to the protagonist in “White Water Summer,” Alan (Sean Astin). I was an introvert who would’ve been much happier spending my summer indoors than out (though I enjoyed the safety of my neighborhood once I moved out of the dangerous city). My parents tried to convince me to try camping and becoming a boy scout, but were never pushy when they noticed my hesitation. Alan’s parents, his father specifically, are the opposite: seeing the chance to spend a few weeks camping as a lesson in survival and growth. They’ve enlisted the aid of Vic (Kevin Bacon), a skilled survivalist, to take him into the wilderness and become one with nature.

The first half of the film is as expected. Vic is the polar opposite of Alan, a lover of the outdoors. The two share similarities, such as in their intelligence, but utilize their traits differently. Alan catches fish by crafting a makeshift trap out of supplies and natural resources; Vic does it the old-fashioned way, by hand, and scoffs at Alan for cheating. He punishes the poor boy on numerous occasions, forcing him to stay behind until a task is finished. He challenges his natural instincts such as in abandoning him to travel a rickety bridge over a hundred feet above water and sharp rocks and leaving him dangling atop a mountain. We can understand Vic’s reasoning, to teach the young teenager to survive, but also challenge his responsibility. Is it really sane for a man to leave a child hanging for his life (literally)? Think of the lawsuit and jail time he were to face had the children in his care were to perish?

Director Jeff Bleckner plays with that throughout, especially in the second half. He struggles in adapting the screenplay, written by Manya Starr & Ernest Kinoy, resulting in Vic’s abrasiveness coming across as sociopathic. There’s one instance where he nearly shoves a camper over the edge of a mountain after a verbal dispute. Considering the film’s overall pleasant tone, and the generally happy ending, this comes off as a conflict of interest. One I found somewhat amusing seeing as how the atmosphere was reminiscent of a campground slasher at times, made more palatable by the inclusion of “Friday the 13th” alum Kevin Bacon. I
didn’t expect it to nearly come to fruition in the final act.

It’s not that the sudden change in tone is a kneejerk reaction. Bleckner builds to it well, hinting at Vic’s questionable tactics. He’s never made out to be the bad guy, just a man with a firm belief in building a person up by challenging their senses. It’s no different than when someone tosses their child into the deep end to teach them how to swim. He’s always presiding over them, even when visibly absent, to ensure their safety if need be. The issue is in when it’s cranked up too much to service the drama, where we must suspend disbelief that the guide would allow his campers to catch pneumonia in a harrowing storm with no tent or, even worse, a wildlife attack.

Does Vic prove his point? Certainly, even if Alan’s cheesy narration (filmed two years later to give credence to his reminiscing) dilutes it. It’s just done so in such a heavy-handed way, with a fatal accident changing the course of direction, that it can cause friction. The connective tissue is there, as is the message, so it’s not a lost cause; just a shaky one, as rickety as the bridge Alan must cross.

I came for the scenery and “White Water Summer” didn’t disappoint in that front. The cinematography by the legendary John Alcott (one of his final films) is gorgeous and atmospheric! Starr & Kinoy’s script infuses the cinematography with a solid pillar. Bleckner keeps all of this in check with his direction, imbuing the film with the right amount of comradery, growth, and danger. It may be too heavy-handed at times, but it’s a pleasant trip nonetheless.

MVT: John Alcott’s cinematography. Sure, it’s the reason I was drawn to the film, but that’s not why it’s my MVT. That’d be because it lent much-needed atmosphere to the proceedings. The wilderness and, more importantly, camerawork, are just as much of a character as the campers are.

Make or Break: The rickety bridge sequence. It breaks up the soothing tone of the film, which at this point came packaged with numerous soft montages. It sets the stage for the forthcoming drama without going too over the top like some of the later predicaments.

Final Score: 7/10

Cut and Run (1985)

Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run (aka Inferno in Diretta aka Straight to Hell) opens with a vicious attack on a jungle drug lab by loincloth-clad natives led by topless madman, Quecho (Michael Berryman).  Waiting in the wings for the narcotics is Colonel Horn (the late Richard Lynch) and his amphibious plane.  Meanwhile in Miami, reporters Fran (the late Lisa Blount) and Mark (Leonard Mann) stumble upon another drug-related massacre while investigating a smuggling ring.  The duo talk their way into a travel assignment to probe deeper on the premise that their search will also turn up TV exec Bob’s (Richard Bright) missing scion Michael (Willie Aames).  Naturally, this is a great idea, and will turn out just fine and dandy.

Cut and Run is an Action film.  It is a Cannibal film (in texture if not content).  It is a Survival film.  It is a Cult film (in the zealotry sense of the word).  You’ll notice that’s a lot of influences.  You’ll also notice that sounds like an awful lot to try and pack into a ninety minute film.  And you would be right.  For as much as this is any one of the things it wants to be at any given point in its runtime, it doesn’t completely satisfy that facet before it leaps to the next one.  The film begins with a strong action scene.  The natives and Quecho are brutal, terrifying in their animal ferocity, yet the filmmakers cut around some of the “money shots.”  They take the time to show the natives strip and attack two women and then cut away at the moment of their fate.  Yes, we get an aftermath shot, but it feels like a whole lot of build up to not much payoff.  And this is the general approach to almost every scene in the film.  It’s not simply that they exit scenes early.  They exit scenes prematurely, and so the viewer is left dangling.  Interestingly, there are some extremely graphic splatter effects later in the film.  Yet, what they chose to show and what they chose to edit around is baffling, because it doesn’t feel motivated in the slightest.  Coming from a director who is best known for one of the most notorious Splatter films ever (Cannibal Holocaust, in case you were wondering), this backing off on the grue is a letdown.

Further to this, the hopscotch approach by the filmmakers is a detriment to the narrative.  For example, Michael cares for fellow prisoner Ana (Valentina Forte).  He watches her be used for the pleasure of any man Vlado (John Steiner) wishes.  He does nothing to stop this (and it should be noted, Aames’ character does little more than mewl whenever he’s on screen).  He connects with her afterward in a very cursory way.  They get split up.  They meet their individual fates.  The various arcs in the film have beginnings and endings, but they lack any real sense of development before they finish.  Consequently, there is no resonance and very little gratification.  And this doesn’t just apply to Michael and Ana’s story.  The whole reason the audience is willing to take the journey to the jungle in the first place is because we want to see what Horn and his minions are planning.  But even after we get any kind of an explanation, we still have no idea what the hell is going on; the reason given is as nebulous as the course Fran and Mark followed to get there.  It’s like having a comic book with all but the first two and last two pages torn out, and the last two are sliced down the middle besides.  The art may be appealing.  What writing you take in may be entertaining, but that doesn’t change your feeling of being cheated (or maybe just frustrating your desire for completion).  With a little bit more connective tissue, a tiny bit more fleshing out, and a tighter focus on the end goal, this could have been a great film.  Inexplicably, what the film does give you is certainly enjoyable up to a point.  However, by continually pulling the rug out from under our expectations, the film ultimately only ever confounds.  Despite my kvetching, however, I have to say I will almost definitely revisit this film at some point, and I dare say I’ll find something to like when I do.  Nevertheless, anyone coming to this movie for the first time really needs to do so with lowered expectations.

As with Deodato’s aforementioned gutmuncher classic, there is an element in Cut and Run about the media.  When Fran and Mark come upon the initial bloodbath in Florida, they do what we expect from the media: they film a report detailing the carnage, exploiting it.  Later, they will do this again as they send transmissions from the jungle back to America.  Unlike the despicable characters in Cannibal Holocaust, Fran and Mark do not facilitate the butchery they are in the midst of, yet they impassively dwell on it, leer at it.  By following the “if it bleeds, it leads” ethos to the letter, they surrender part of their humanity.  They never really do what’s “right” outside of their documentation of their experiences.  Of course, the viewer becomes complicit in this dehumanization because this is what we want to see from the comfort of our seats.  Additionally, it should be noted that Horn’s interaction with Mark and Fran is a form of punctuation on this.  He has the reporters film his statement of purpose (it doesn’t matter that it’s head-scratchingly vague) because he knows that this is the only way to be heard in this world.  For years, he hid away, believed dead, but Horn understands that through the media his thoughts can live on and perhaps inspire others to follow.  To be fair, this most likely will never happen since his words and deeds seem contradictory and unconvincing, but that he wants his actions filmed for posterity forces viewers to confront how they interact with the media, to some degree or another.

Similarly, there are themes of idolatry.  Horn was a follower of the infamous Jim Jones, and Horn’s own cult among the natives is an extension of that.  Like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now, Horn is, for all intents and purposes, a god to these people.  He understands the value of showmanship to promote his brand of cultism to his select few, but he also appears to be a true believer.  He wants to keep these people “pure,” and he feels that the outside world, especially the media, has brought nothing but contamination into the jungle.  Despite this, Horn claims no ultimate wisdom.  He states, “There are no answers.  Only actions.  By our actions, we are judged, pure or unholy.”  It’s an intriguing enough philosophy on its surface, but how Horn draws it to its final conclusion belies his words.  He thinks he’s showing members of the electronic jury a true path, but what he is actually doing is giving them more of what they want.  I do think the filmmakers have things like this to say in Cut and Run, but the questions they want to raise are muddled by the schizophrenic film that surrounds them.  Like I said, it’s confounding.

MVT:  Deodato is quite adept at manufacturing atmosphere, and Cut and Run certainly has a palpable texture to it.  It’s just laid over top of seriously shaky foundations.

Make or Break:  The opening assault is impressive.  Its culmination is indicative of what to expect: simultaneous highs and lows.

Score:  6.75/10                

Sands Of The Kalahari (1965)

The first time I went on an airplane, I was not scared.  I was flying to visit my uncle in New Hampshire, and I was probably about thirteen or fourteen years old.  I had no butterflies in my stomach.  I had no trepidation about looking out the window at the ground so many miles beneath my feet.  As a matter of fact, I kind of liked flying.  Unfortunately, my feelings are not the same today.  I have been on more flights than I would care to count which have flown through hellacious turbulence (the actual number is probably far less than ten, but I feel that’s more than enough, don’t you?).  I have been on flights where it felt like we were coming down for our landing at a (shall we say?) not-so-great angle.  I’m sure that when you’re piloting a flight like that, you have a large degree of control, and the danger is as minimized as it can be.  That said, I am an inveterate misanthrope and distrustful of most people, so my faith in airline pilots is about the same as the distance I can throw them (did I mention I have a bad back?).  I realize that the odds of being involved in a fatal airplane accident is about one in a million, but more often than not, I feel more like the one than the million, especially mid-flight when it feels like the large metal coffin you’re gliding through the air in (as well as your bowels) are about to make fast friends with Mother Earth.  Now, just add in a swarm of locusts, and you have Cy Endfield’s Sands Of The Kalahari, a film which has done nothing to alleviate my phobias about aviation, whatsoever.   

When their flight to Johannesburg, South Africa is delayed, a small group of passengers, including Grace Munkton (Susannah York), Mike Bain (Stanley Baker), Mr. Grimmelman (Harry Andrews), and Dr. Bondrachai (Theodore Bikel) find a small cargo plane willing to take them that evening for a nominal fee.  Piloted by the jovial-but-caddish Sturdevan (Nigel Davenport), the plane takes off with one additional passenger, great white hunter Brian O’Brien (Stuart Whitman).  Running afoul of the previously mentioned winged insects, the plane goes down in the middle of the (you guessed it) Kalahari Desert, and the survivors are faced with two choices: live or die.

Simply put, this film is in the Survival subgenre, yet what’s interesting in this one is the setting.  It’s not so much that it’s set in the desert (there are scads of movies about characters stranded in a desert), but what this particular desert says about the story.  The film came out at a time when apartheid was still national policy in South Africa and only two years after Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for his anti-apartheid efforts.  However, the rest of the world was not really on board with South Africa’s practices at this point, even though the United States had only just passed their own anti-discriminatory Civil Rights Act in 1964.  The film very subtly addresses the idea of segregation within its first few minutes.  As Grace makes her way along the airfield, there are bunches of African kids hanging on the fence, calling out and gesticulating.  It’s not that they are portrayed as particularly dangerous but more as full of life and energy, and they almost seem to be taunting the white people who pass them by, the fence the only thing keeping the whites safe (in their own minds, at least) for now.  Upon entering the airport terminal, there is almost total silence.  It is unnatural, this quiet, but it also serves to describe the differences of the racial divide.  The whites inside the terminal are cold and lifeless.  Here they are guarded and distinctly separate from the rest of the world outside the door.  In a sense, then, it can be argued that the locusts which take down the plane and the travails that follow are a sort of revenge on the people who have partaken in and enabled the racism which has divided the nation by the very land itself.

This sort of story set-up will typically lend itself to a microcosm cast, a sampling of different types representing different sections of society and watching how they interact under great stress.  Not so much with Sands Of The Kalahari.  Aside from the affable Grimmelman and the timid Bondrachai, the characters are rather unlikable.  Sturdevan is a misogynist pig and a borderline rapist.  Bain is a self-pitying drunk with a bad leg (making him an even more flawed and incomplete man who could never be a suitor for Grace’s affections).  Speaking of Grace, she starts off as a tease but quickly becomes an opportunist giving herself over sexually to O’Brien, because he is the most traditionally masculine and capable of keeping her alive.  O’Brien is a bloodthirsty paranoiac who is only looking out for number one (and not really caring if he steps in number two).  Even without any redeeming values among them to make them sympathetic, there should still be something there to keep the audience following their tale.  Unfortunately, they all seem to act out of character at a moment’s notice, seemingly in attempts to garner said sympathy, but these changes felt forced and hollow to me.  I would guess this has to do with the film being an adaptation of a novel (by William Mulvihill), so the episodic feel (which should help us see the characters as more rounded individuals) simply leaves one with a rather uneven impression.  Oddly, this also appears to reinforce my theory that South Africa wants to have its vengeance on these people.  Making them jerks just makes it easier for the audience to want it done.

We expect this type of ordeal to be either transformative or truthful.  That is, we expect the characters to either become different people from how they started or to show who they truly are behind any façade they may wear.  I would actually argue that it is both transformative and truthful.  The trials and tribulations set before a character are going to change them, even if it is only for the duration of their misfortunes.  And since character is shown by the actions one takes under pressure, we are seeing these people for who they really are.  Ergo, the transformation is in the stripping away of the fronts people put on in polite society and showing in public who they are behind closed doors.  That the characters in this film are not really worthy of the redemption we would normally afford someone who has undergone a trial by fire is a bit of a letdown.  But then again, the filmmakers only seem to be interested in judging (and punishing) one of them in particular, and since no standard of conduct is laid down or enforced in the diegetic world, how can any of these characters be either damned or praised, since the film itself doesn’t want to do it?  This non-judgment doesn’t make them any more appealing, though, and I personally wouldn’t want to spend five minutes with the majority of them outside of this movie.  But then, that’s my prerogative, isn’t it?    

MVT:  Endfield’s direction is clean and clear, and along with Director of Photography Erwin Hillier, he has a fantastic grasp of widescreen cinema.  Every inch of the screen is used to amazing effect, and the film is gorgeous from start to finish.

Make Or Break:  The Make is the scene when O’Brien is down in a hole and desperately flinging himself at the sheer walls in a vain attempt to free himself.  As he clambers around, he babbles incessantly, and his character is finally stripped bare.  It’s a great moment and only beats out the final scene for me, because it was the point at which I decided I like this film.

Score:  6.75/10

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