![]() ![]() Still, with that in mind, it's interesting to see how Roth's fanboyish impulse to top "Cannibal Holocaust" director Ruggero Deodato and his Italian contemporaries winds up inadvertently revealing the relatively humanizing aspects of "The Green Inferno" as a cultural critique. ![]() It's technically not gratuitous however because the extreme nature of Roth's film is its primary reason to exist. Still, there is an element of you-get-what-you-give moralism to the blood-soaked massacre that ensues after Alejandro's group's plane experiences engine failure and crash-lands in the midst of a people-eating Peruvian tribe. They are, in other words, the perfect examples of the American exceptionalism that Roth mocked in "Hostel," only this time they're too young, dumb and full of bad ideas to be treated like real bad guys. ![]() These kids want to smoke weed, they lead with their alternative lifestyle (Veganism is wacky!), and are deeply hormonal. Roth mocks Justine's peers before circumstantial peril humanizes them (mostly more on this in a moment). That call to inclusivity is ironic given that this is an Eli Roth film. Still, Justine makes her way back into Alejandro's good graces in a scene that complicates her horny-for-teacher motives: Justine challenges Alejandro, and says that maybe his group might have a greater impact if he were more inclusive. Justine has immediately superficial reasons: she's attracted to student leader Alejandro ( Ariel Levy), a dickishly self-serious leader who initially asks Justine to leave his group when she mockingly raises doubts about his methods' efficacy. "The Green Inferno" is, in that sense, not so much a knock against Occupy Wall-Street-style slacktivists (though it is also that) so much as it's an accomplished, mean-spirited horror film about a heroine who is too young to understand the motives for her do-gooder idealism.įrom the start, Justine is asked-by her even-tempered diplomat father Charles ( Richard Burgi) and bitchy romantic rival Kara ( Ignacia Allamand)-why she's joining a mission to stop the destruction of an indigenous Peruvian tribe's ancestral home. Because Roth is an existential misanthrope, Justine faces the worst nightmare of any privileged white protagonist with unexamined racism in their hearts: an inhuman tribe of flesh-eating cannibals who behead, gouge, impale, drug and devour any outsiders unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Roth's homage to notorious Italian films like "Cannibal Holocaust" is a nasty piece of work with a mean spirit that is tempered by believable sympathy with naive protagonist Justine ( Lorenza Izzo), a college freshman who travels to Peru with a student activist group after she becomes traumatized by a college lecture on female genital mutilation. Controversial filmmaker Eli Roth ("Hostel," " Cabin Fever") has finally made a film with squirm-inducing skills that match its provocative payload. ![]()
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