Iguana

The poet dwells alone, says Emerson, so does the barbarous builder of civilization introduced sharpening his harpoon in the hull of a galleon. "You'll be sent to hell on a cannonball one of these days." The disfigured outcast (Everett McGill), mocked and branded until he escapes to an island and declares war on humanity, Prospero and Caliban as one. The edge of the world, where tyrants preside in caves and subjects wash ashore to be shackled and maimed. "I want you to suffer, as I have." He forbids kindness, craves respect, settles for fear. His opposite number is the sea captain (Fabio Testi) he fights in a swirl of foam and blood, his captive is the Spanish maiden (Maru Valdivielso) whose free spirit he recognizes as a kindred form of monstrous revolt. The saeva indignatio of the grand lizard, "caught like a rabbit" in the end, nothing but a man after all. A true masterwork of abstruse and horrible beauty, the stark and the baroque fused as only Monte Hellman can. The gentle sailor (Joseph Culp) is given one minute to kill or be killed, the enslaved steward (Michael Madsen) loses fingers and toes but still won't point a gun at his tormenter. "How does it feel to discover you've awakened the sleeping beast that has devoured all that you love?" Volcanic rock and electric ocean, reptilian flag and burning ship. A densely imagistic language throughout, oil canvases on a shoestring, time that stands still or leaps ahead months or years. Goddess and whore according to Cervantes, fact and fiction according to Homer, a passion for ancient texts, "except the Bible." The Emperor Jones, La Belle et la Bête, Aguirre der Zorn Gottes, Noroît... The unforgettable finale is an abominable gesture most tenderly filmed and a fitting "monument to a madman," Hellman wouldn't want it any other way. Cinematography by Josep M. Civit. With Tim Ryan, Agustín Guevara, Fernando Cebrián, and Jack Taylor.