Touche pas la femme blanche

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."

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.

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.

Don't Touch the White Woman is a very strange and surreal film for the average person...it basically tells the story of General George Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn. It tells it as a semi-costume period piece in the midst of modern Paris, though...centered on a large construction site.

Mastrianni is wonderful as Custer, and Deneuve is great as always, but I think Ugo Tognazzi steals the show as the Indian scout...this is such a shocking role for all those who only know the actor through La Cage Aux Folles.

Leave it to Marco Ferreri to decide to make this film in the pit that was created out of what had been Les Halles food market in the center of Paris. This was the site where the Pompidou Center was erected and now stands proudly, as though it was always had been there for all these years.

The director deals with a page of shame of American history as George Custer prepared, and later battled, the Indians in the battle of Little Big Horn that was his last stand as a military man. Where Marco Ferreri succeeds is in mixing the plot of the film with every day life of Paris in which most people didn't even bat an eye watching the invading Americans.

Mr. Ferreri was lucky in getting some familiar faces to play in his film. Thus, Marcello Mastroianni is seen as General Custer. Catherine Deneuve played the object of the general's affections. Ugo Tognazzi is great as Mitch. Michel Piccoli is bigger than life in his take of Buffalo Bill. Philippe Noiret, another excellent actor, plays Gen. Terry, and Serge Reggiani is seen as the mad Indian who runs in and out of most scenes wearing a loin cloth to cover a little bit of his nakedness.

The idea of staging this film in a construction site works well with the action in the movie thanks to a revolutionary idea by Marco Ferreri.