Monday, 28 September 2015


fiLmReviEw
GREEN INFERNO [2015, USA-CHILE - English]
"If you stumbled across this on a warped VHS tape from the early 1980s, it would probably be a hardcore cult classic, but in 2015, it’s more funny than horrifying."
- Brent McKnight, Paste Magazine
With fear-monger Eli Roth (Cabin Fever - 2002, Hostel I & II - 2005 & 2007), we know it's all about the cringe. Not that I am a fan but I have to admit some of his films did make an imprint in the torture-porn genre which managed to successfully satiate fans of extreme gore and savage violence (during that era, that is). In his homage to ’80s Italian cannibal films like Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Roth wanted to relive the bold and unapologetic ways of the filmmakers then, for instance going into real jungles and shooting with actual indigenous natives. He missed those kind of dangerous filming, and hence his latest product Green Inferno is made, with the hope that it will be accepted similarly with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006). Verdict? Far from it. And I think Brent McKnight's take which I've quoted in my opening says it all.
The filming in Peru and some parts in Chile does make Inferno somewhat a treat visually. Though Roth uses a plethora of local farmers (from a village deep in the Amazon called Callanayacu) to portray the natives, watching their bloody-painted bodies swarming the lush greeneries of the handsome Amazon eventually becomes the singular production value and reason you're not cursing yourself for paying to watch this film.
Leading the cast is Roth's wife Lorenzo Izzo as Justine, a college freshman in New York, who joins Alejandro (Ariel Levy) and his group of activists on a trip to Peru to stop the bulldozing of the rainforest and the annihilation of an isolated indigenous tribe. Upon mission completion, their plane crashes on the way back, landing half of them dead and the other half stranded in the Amazon, only ironically to be hunted down by the very natives they have risked their lives to safe. This is nevertheless an elaborate and calculated effort with a cynical message Roth is blaring here. In dismissing critics that accused his story of creating a racist view of the uncontacted and isolated groups, Roth has trumpeted that the bad guys of Inferno are not the natives but the “social justice warriors” (SJW) whose activism is driven by vanity, quoting: "...the film is really about people getting caught up in causes they don’t know anything about and doing it for vanity reasons more than for the cause itself." The protagonists hence becomes the people Roth intends to mock.

As just as it may sound, Inferno fails at every level and is constantly contradictory in its delivery. First of all, watching how the cannibalistic natives systematically maim and eat their captives, you can't help but feel sorry instead for the SJWs. In fact, most of them who die a revolting death are actually rather likeable, as compared to their hosts from hell who are depicted in the worst possible way. Yet Roth reminds that the film is actually intended to get us rooting for the natives, not to mention they are handsomely paid with money and home improvements for their acting. Come on, who are we kidding here. Enlisting people with no real awareness of stereotypes into playing up and perpetuating a stereotype in the most degrading manner about their own people? It is a mere trade of their ignorance for commerce, don't you think?
And the problem with the movie doesn't end there. For a film which the main device is to challenge audience's limits, there are just too many off-putting moments which break and digress, failing to truly grip us. Just to name one obvious example, nobody wants to see an explosive diarrhoea with the natives laughing away. OK I can't resist, I'm going to give another. At one point, the captives' genius escape plan is to shove a bag of marijuana down the throat of one of the deceased so that when cooked, the villagers will all get stoned and become distracted! Moments like these deteriorate the film to a cheap flick level, all the more appearing to be mocking the audience instead of the SJWs. And wait, it still doesn't end here. Don't forget to watch the most ridiculous hidden scene during the credits. Touted as Roth's come back vehicle, it feels more like a return to a bygone era of explicit violent filmmaking.
Rating : D-
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