Iguana (1988)

 

Set during the nineteenth century, Iguana tells the story of Oberlus, a deformed harpooner, who has been branded the "Iguana" by his drunken and sadistic shipmates, who revel in torturing and abusing him. When Oberlus jumps ship, he sets himself up on a deserted island, and declares a "war on humanity". Making himself king of the island, he captures anyone unlucky enough to wash up on its shores and makes them his slaves. But when a tempestuous and independent woman winds up on the island, the Iguana may have met his match. Monte Hellman is certainly one of the more underrated of the wave of American filmmakers that emerged in the late sixties and early seventies. Like Scorsese, Hellman's favorite subjects are men living on the fringes of society, who are both struggling to be a part of the social order, while also at odds with it. But Hellman's direction is a lot less "Hollywood" than Scorsese's. His films are shot in a low-key, sometimes gritty, sometimes poetic style; they are very down-to-Earth, and very much in tune with their character's psychology. On one level Iguana is this sweeping adventure, with elements of the thriller, romance, and even horror (in a possible reference to Herzog, a man gets his head chopped off, and continues to move his mouth for a split second afterwards), but it is also very much not sweeping, it is insular, there are a lot of ellipses; scenes fade into one another without much warning as to what is coming next, a dramatic event is succeeded by one that is very ordinary. But that is where the charm of Hellman's filmmaking lies, it is raw, sensual, but most of all accessible. It is very proletarian in nature, but also romantic in the best sense of the word. Iguana is brutal and disturbing, at times funny, and it is a searing character study. Few directors have approached the topic with such an unsentimental eye.