I was surprised how disturbed I was by Holy Smoke the second time I watched it. This is one of the purest examples of films that depict gender injustice as an eternal, seemingly insoluble power struggle. The war between the sexes: man wins, woman loses, woman wins, man loses. Here, we see the power dynamics played out between a young woman and an older man. The girl has been coaxed home from India. Her mother is worried that she is exploited by a cult. The family has contacted an American “expert” who is to deprogram the poor girl. For most of the film we see these two, the girl and the man, trapped in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He has his agenda. When he thinks he has “gotten through”; mission completed, the situation turns back on him. The girl uses her sexual allure and – WHAM! – She has got the man, the big, macho man, under her thumb. Now it is HE who is in bad need of deprogramming. MEN AND WOMEN WOMEN AND MEN MEN AND WOMEN – and so on in all eternity. OK, I disagree.
(Yes there are redeeming things to say about Holy smoke, too. Let's begin and end with Harvey Keitel.)
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