Iguana (1988)

The world is full of forgotten movies. For every major hit, indie favourite and cult classic, there’s a picture buried under the sands of time. Think of the thousands of TV movies, film festival picks and limited distribution weirdies that have languished in obscurity in decades. I’m willing to bet that Monte Hellman’s movie Iguana is completely new to you. Without the existence of the internet and its niche film communities, I would never have heard of it either. Released in 1988, this strange and haunting story of high seas rebellion has only just started to develop something of a following. I was alerted to its existence by the Canadian critic Will Sloan, who describes it as a work of ‘horrible beauty’. He’s correct. Iguana is a dark, Herzogian odyssey into the origin of human societies and the threat of violence that binds us all together.

Oberlus (Everett McGill) is a harpooner who has known nothing but hatred and humiliation. A facial disfigurement has earned Oberlus a mocking nickname, ‘Iguana’, and he spends his days at sea in brooding isolation. The century appears to be the 1800s, but nothing is certain. As his ship sails through the seas of the South Pacific, and after suffering a vicious beating at the hands of his cruel crewmates, Oberlus jumps into the water and swims into the night. He finds himself on one of the uninhabited islands of the Galapagos archipelago, and quickly declares himself its king. Oberlus declares war on the world, enslaving shipwrecked sailors, castaways, and those explorers foolhardy enough to venture into his waters. He reigns as a petty tyrant, compelling loyalty by cutting off fingers and holding the threat of execution over his captives.

Iguana is a cruel nickname, but it’s perfectly suited to the film’s protagonist. Oberlus is a cold-blooded reptile. He sticks to the shadows, hides in the island’s system of caves and lives off the rugged Earth, always keeping a crooked eye on his mistreated subordinates. One might expect this character to be sympathetic, given his life of miserable treatment, but he’s as merciless and vile a man as I’ve ever seen on screen. The castaway harpooner’s decision to style himself as a king may seem ridiculous and fantastical, but his island does have its own society, and it will have to be governed some way. With the point of his sword, Oberlus chooses dictatorship. Director Monte Hellman and writer Steven Gaydos show us the birth of all kingdoms, the way in which all royal lines begin. Historically, power and territory are won through violence and kept through threat. Oberlus is doing nothing new.

It’s fitting that Hellman’s film takes place on an island of the Galapagos, the site of Charles Darwin’s study into evolution and the origin of species. Stalking across volcanic rock, Iguana regresses to year zero. A new kind of civilisation is created, away from all the comforts of the world changed by the industrial revolution and major scientific advancements. Large stretches progress without much in the way of story, simply following the captives as they work on the beach or huddle in their caves. All are surviving more than living. It’s never made clear where exactly they find their food and drinkable water, but such details don’t really matter. Iguana works on its own logic, telling a bitter poem of the connection between the human and the animal. Hellman’s movie is slow-moving and cryptic but always compelling and thoughtful. It’s clear that the movie was Hellman’s passion project, a long-gestating labour of love. This passion shines through, giving every scene an unmistakable weight.

Watching Iguana, I continually found myself reminded of the German director Werner Herzog and his stories of colonial folly, impossible dreams and doomed adventures. Hellman operates in the same territory as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, telling the story of another miniature kingdom established by a small band of travellers far from home. Where Werner Herzog has the mania of Klaus Kinski, Monte Hellman has the sturdy coolness of Everett McGill, an American character actor known for his work with David Lynch. I’m used to seeing McGill as a reassuring figure, a salt of the earth, blue collar gentleman with a big heart and a warm smile. In Iguana, he plays a man poisoned by his own poor treatment, a figure of utter malice. Oberlus never raises his voice and he never descends into mania. He’s a man of rules, orders and regulations. He thinks up a set of codes and makes it the law of his own violent universe. The harpooner’s grand strategy may be insane, but scene by scene he seems perfectly in control of his own mind and body.

Writer/Director Monte Hellman was the Roger Corman acolyte who never quite made it. While Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson became titanic Hollywood power players in the 1970s, Hellman remained a cult figure. He released one canonical 70s classic, 1971’s Two-Lane Blacktop, but never became a household name. Hellman spent the rest of his career making odd low-budget movies and inspiring nerdy cinephiles with his offbeat existentialism. Quentin Tarantino was a fan, and he had his career jumpstarted by the older filmmaker when he produced Tarantino’s debut feature: Reservoir Dogs. Despite Tarantino’s enthusiasm, Iguana has remained obscure and tricky to find. It’s now available on streaming services, but it has never been given a physical release in the United Kingdom, and American copies are rare. The film’s persistent obscurity is somewhat puzzling. It stars a couple of known actors (Everett McGill, Michael Madsen) and its score was provided by Joni Mitchell, who sings mournful ballads over the opening and closing credits.

Iguana is far from a perfect movie. It’s choppy, it’s disjointed and its elliptical story is free of any wider narrative context. It starts in media res and continues on the same track, refusing to explain itself or establish clear histories for its characters. This does lead to some moments of narrative confusion, particularly in the film’s strange early stages. My advice is to persevere. Don’t let the film’s rougher qualities put you off. They’re all part of the experience, small imperfections that lend themselves to an offbeat, unpredictable atmosphere of dark experimentation. Hellman’s sea story dances to a different rhythm, losing itself in folklore, evolutionary biology and primeval politics. The potency of its ideas, images and performances make it utterly hypnotic. Iguana is only half-over when the credits roll. The rest of the film is in the thoughts that it inspires in the hours and days afterwards, the strange tracks of imagination that it builds in your mind. Iguana sticks around and sinks into your skin.