Berühre nicht die weiße Frau

Marco Ferreri's "Touche pas a la femme blanche" - "Don't Touch the White Woman" in English - could easily be an extension of "Little Big Man" or a movie version of "A People's History of the United States", although it came out a few years before Howard Zinn published his famous book. It portrays the US government's crusade to exterminate the Indians, reenacted in 1970s Paris (complete with references to Pres. Nixon, and even Watergate). Marcello Mastroianni makes a chilling Gen. Custer, but Michel Piccoli is quite funny as Buffalo Bill: he sounded as though he was trying to put on an American accent while speaking French!

I read about how Marco Ferreri played a major role in the changing Italian cinema of the '60s and '70s. Certainly this film shows that. Specifically, as the United States had been taking a different look at its own history - our own glasnost and perestroika, you might say - Europe was also challenging the American cultural myth (no surprise there). I definitely recommend the movie. Also starring Catherine Deneuve and Ugo Tognazzi.

General George Custer can't wait to crush the Indians in Marco Ferreri's Touche Pas à la femme blanche. It's the only thing he can talk about. Meanwhile, he also falls in love with Marie-Hélène, who can't be touched by an Indian, especially Custer's informant. The informant awaits his moment.

Just another ordinary version of the battle between settlers and Indians at Little Big Horn? Far from it! The ever wayward filmmaker Marco Ferreri chose to film the battle of Little Big Horn at the place where Les Halles - the Parisian vegetable market - was taken down in 1974. In fact, it was actually taken down during the filming of this movie. The demolishers were probably rubbing their eyes in astonishment. Catherine Deneuve, right here, in this mess?

I enjoyed the movie immensely. All the actors wear the same deadpan expressions as if they really are blind to the fact that they are acting out a traditional western story in a modern setting. Unlike in Les Visiteurs, no jokes about the confrontation with modernity. The characters just do not seem to see it, as if they live in another dimension. It creates many brilliant moments, such as when a cannon is fired and a building collapses. Or if Custer points to a Coca-Cola advertisement and says: "My wife."

I really like Marco Ferreri's films, very much, but I do not like this movie. It's uninteresting, banal, boring script. The four great actors from the masterpiece "La Grande Bouffe" (1973), Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and Ugo Tognazzi, are also present here but, working only with no-value replicas, do not make the film worthy of interest. The presence of several other great actors such as Alain Cuny, Serge Reggiani, Paolo Villaggio, Franco Fabrizi, does not change anything for the better. However, the performance of Michel Piccoli (the only one still alive of all), which looks very commercially in the role of Buffalo Bill and succeeds a charming American accent, is worthy of admiration.

Leave it to Marco Ferreri to place Custer's defeat in the hands of over the top Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret, Catherine Deneuve and many other great actors. Staged in Paris where the building-pit of what is now shopping-mall Les Halles represents the prairie all forms of humour are on display, ending in black. Humour that is. A film not be missed by comediens and their followers.

Several tribes of Native Americans have taken up residence in a large excavation in the center of modern day Paris. Meeting nearby in an ornate domed room, some wealthy industrialists decide that the savages are impeding progress and must be exterminated. After successfully bribing the head of the army, General Custer is brought in to lead the effort. A portrait of their President, Richard Nixon, seems to watch over them from everywhere.

Made in the early 1970s, this surreal black comedy is usually interpreted as a scathing commentary on America's involvement in Vietnam, but I didn't see it that way. There is nothing in the film which significantly corresponds to the Vietnam conflict, and the few American symbols which show up are so awkwardly out of place and the characters exaggerated in such a ludicrous manner that it had the effect of constantly reminding me that this wasn't really about Americans. I can't claim to know how the European audience for which it was intended would have viewed it, but I saw it as a satirical look at European racism and colonialism (which, of course, would ultimately include both the genocide of Native Americans and the conflict in Vietnam) and a left-wing allegory of capitalism in which the Native Americans represent the oppressed working classes.

As a social/political satire, it achieves it's greatest success in depicting an absolute and brutal racism without being didactic or calling unnecessary attention to it. The most interesting character is Custer's Indian scout. Moving freely among both European and Native American societies, he is detested by both groups and detests both of them in return. The title of the film comes from Custer's constant reminders of the many things which the scout, being an Indian, is not allowed to do. When asked by another Native American why he hates Custer so much, the scout replies "because he treats me like... an Indian". The pause in delivering the line and the comic reaction of both characters afterward is handled exceptionally well.

All in all, the film's success as a left-wing critique of capitalism/colonialism is limited because so many of its clever subtleties get lost in the comedic noise. As a satire on American imperialism it fares much more poorly, coming dangerously close to being little more than a partisan screed. It does, however, achieve moderate success at being an entertaining absurdist farce with excellent comedic performances by the lead actors.