Soldier Blue

Two survivors of an attack, a soldier and a woman who lived for years among the Cheyenne, try to reach the fort together. For a long stretch the film proceeds like a conventional western. Then the last section, in which the army destroys a Cheyenne village, changes it entirely. That sequence is based on the Sand Creek massacre of 1864 and hides almost nothing. The year matters: the details of My Lai had come out at the end of 1969, and Ralph Nelson meant the parallel to be unmissable. With violence against women and children put on screen, a number of countries cut or banned the film. Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss lead. Its flaw is the gulf between the light, almost romantic comedy of the early stretch and the ending, and some critics argued that showing the violence this explicitly serves exploitation rather than the argument. Who it is for: viewers curious about revisionist westerns and the political cinema of the period. Who it is not for: anyone who avoids extreme violence.