STRAW DOGS (1971)
This is a horror/noir/melodrama about a nerdy and condescending math professor (Dustin Hoffman) with a sexy, bored, and frustrated wife (Susan George) who go on a getaway to the Irish countryside so he can work and escape the tensions created at his university by the Vietnam war. His wife begins a dangerous flirtation with the rough local Irishmen which spirals out of control and leads to extreme violence.
This movie couldn’t be more thrilling and suspenseful, but I love it most for what I see as its brutal honesty and willingness to face difficult human traits and desires. To me, Ms. Sumner is an incredibly complex and nuanced character, portrayed unflinchingly by Susan George. She is an unintentional femme fatale. She doesn’t create a violent situation maliciously or for money. She is after feeling, thrills, passion. She wants the thrill of being desired by dangerous local men. She also wants affection and respect from her husband. Sometimes she wants to lose control and feel endangered and sometimes she wants to feel safe. She wants her husband’s jealousy, for her husband to become a man, to protect her, to fight. She also wants the thrill of seeing her husband emasculated or even hurt/killed. And she wants to be punished for being who she is, for wanting what she wants. This movie is hedonistic in an unusual way. The characters act out of feeling, without thinking, and it destroys them. But there’s a unique and powerful fantasy to it. This one is high on the list of movies not to watch with a member of the opposite gender. It inspires arguments.
