Unusual film on S.P.T.

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 11

Unusual film on S.P.T.

“Savages”, tonight’s movie on South Pacific Television was directed by James Ivory, the man who

made his international reputation with films he made in India like "Shakespeare Wallah” and "The Guru.”

In "Savages,” Ivory and his producer, Ismail Merchant, turn their attention to the United States. And in a world we think we understand, they find the seeds of a much greater savagery and strangeness than anything the East can provide. A tribe of primitive mud people live in the jungle. Except for feathers and daubings of clay, they go naked. They jabber and gesticulate wordlessly, fight, leap up and down and copulate as the mood takes them. An absurd ritual in which the consort of a high priestess, having sated her lust, is about to be crushed to death by a large stone, is interrupted by the arrival of a croquet ball bouncing towards them.

At once they set out to discover where it came from, and they end up at a large and beautiful house, long deserted by its occupants. They venture in like children and find food, clothes, utensils of every kind. A transformation takes place.

They have become guests at an elegant house party some time before the Second World War. There is talk of fashions and politics, society gossip, recitals, trivial discussion and learned argument.

Civilisation has reached its apogee. Then things begin to fall apart. The hostess is rudely interrupted, blows are exchanged, a man drowns in the swimming pool, ceremonies of drug-taking and sexual exhibitionism cast back to the rituals of the "mud people.” By morning their re--gression is total.