Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Its 1973-74 and you're writer/director Sam Peckinpah. You've made The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, Straw Dogs, and Ride the High Country. You're a genius filmmaker. You despise all authority figures. You hate yourself. You think the only thing that matters in life is the movies you make.

And so you decide to make Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The story of a bartender in who-knows-where Mexico who agrees to find and kill Alfredo Garcia in return for a terrific bounty paid for by a Mexican jefe, this film is also an exploration a lowly man's odyssey to make something out of his miserable life (not kidding here).

Critics consider the film an expression of Peckinpah's personal angst toward life and his role in it. He battled w/ the Hollywood establishment all the time (and was blacklisted at one point...because no one wanted to work w/ such an unpleasant guy!). Not only was he not a family man, but he barely saw or spent time w/ his children. Later in life, he became addicated to cocaine and the quality of his films declined severely. He died young at age 59.

All of these feelings come through in full force in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. It's a difficult film to watch -- it feels like Peckinpah is treating the audience like his personal dartboard. Instead of darts, he's throwinig his problems directly at us. And oh yeah, he's doing it while blindfolded (well, actually, he's probably also drunk or high). Have you ever seen a more desperate, ineffective form of psychoanalytic relief? Well, anything for art, I suppose.

As the film's hero Benny (Warren Oates, looking positively frightful) goes on a killing spree in his effort to deliver Alfredo Garcia's head to the jefe so as to claim his prize, the viewer begins to feel as low and dirty as the characters in the film. Artists -- directors, especially -- are often great manipulators, and certainly Peckinpah is one of the greatest. The depravity and violence depicted in the film is unrivaled, and yet, I found myself wanting to see the darn thing through to the conclusion. One suspects early on that Benny's journey is actually a death wish. It's a wish that takes 2 gruesome hours to be granted.

A film like this will force you to re-examine your own life, the goals you set for yourself, and whether or not you're satisfied. And it will make you so unbelievably thankful that no matter how down you get sometimes, you're not living life at Benny's level...and you never want to be.