briand@tekig1.UUCP (Brian Diehm) (05/14/84)
I also thought much of Coup De Torchon. I saw it last fall, so it's been
a while. I didn't find it a racist movie, I thought it was an accurate por-
trayal of a racist time and place, which is something else entirely.
The movie explored an interesting psychological wrinkle - what happens to
a cowardly person who is placed into a position of authority, and then squeezed
into exercising the authority. Specifically, the protagonist is "the law" in
an out of the way French Equitorial African town, who much prefers to allow
whatever is going on to continue unchecked - at least by him. Therefore, he
always lets the smugglers get away, he arrives "just too late" to stop wife
beatings (as you can see, this isn't racist because it's the whites who are
uncivilized), etc. etc.
When forced by circumstances to "clean up the town", he responds by a
fascinating mixture of "Colt Courage" and manipulating people to do the dirty
work for him --- (spoiler) for example, he twists circumstances so that his
mistress blows away his wife and her lover, all in self defense.
It helps to understand French law here - even today the French do not sub-
scribe to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty", and an accused person
is at risk until he or she can prove innocence.
There were several moments of humor, many of bathos and pathos, and some
rather opaque subplots - why was the schoolteacher in the movie at all? What
was her role at the end? In all, I would have to say this was one of the MOST
interesting psychodramas I'd seen in a long while, and would recommend you not
miss it if you are after intelligent and thought provoking entertainment. Joe
Bob Briggs will not be reviewing this one!