Watched on Blu-Ray

"Sorcerer" is for William Friedkin what "Fitzcarraldo" was for Werner Herzog and what "Apocalypse Now" was for Francis Ford Coppola, namely a merciless trip into the heart of darkness, struggling with all kinds of problems such as trouble with parts of the crew, illnesses, a budget that got out of hand or sudden changes in the weather, but above all with the costly perfectionism of his meticulous director. With "French Connection" (1971) and "The Exorcist" (1973), Friedkin had scored two box-office hits, could virtually choose his next project and tried his hand at his very own vision of "Le salaire de la peur" ( boxd.it/1EuHnZ ) by Henri-Georges Clouzot. And "Sorcerer" was a solid flop at the box office. Whether it was because the film was released at the same time as Star Wars, because Roy Scheider had less star power to offer than the originally planned leading man Steve McQueen, or perhaps because Friedkin simply missed an audience that wanted to be whisked away to fairy-tale space worlds in the auditorium next door - it can never be said exactly.

Yet with "Sorcerer" Friedkin has succeeded in creating a truly breathtakingly exciting and immensely gripping piece of adventure cinema that develops an enormous urgency and relies almost entirely on the power of its images. Sorcerer is a lesson in tension building, narrative economy and precision as well as atmosphere. There is little talking and to describe Sorcerer as having little dialogue is almost an understatement. But the spoken word is hardly necessary in Friedkin's masterpiece of suspense, when the events on the screen captivate and captivate all by themselves. The crossing of a dilapidated suspension bridge in the midst of a raging tropical storm alone is perfectly staged suspense in its purest form, literally presses the viewer into the seat and is also fantastically filmed. And that's far from the only highlight of this arduous 200-mile journey through the impassable jungle with highly sensitive nitroglycerine in tow.

And then there is Friedkin's superficially fleeting, elliptical character sketch of these four men of exceedingly questionable morality: a career criminal, a contract killer, a Palestinian terrorist and an economic fraudster meet in this hellhole somewhere in absolute nowhere between dirt, poverty, disease and unbearable heat, each there for very specific reasons, with no way out, no perspective, no hope for their old lives. Their own personal hell, so to speak, perhaps as a form of reparation for their transgressions. And so a US oil company's search for volunteers for a suicide mission comes just in time for them, but less as a hope of escape than as a deep-seated desire for at least some form of atonement that might have to be made for their old lives - to the death if necessary.

With "Sorcerer", William Friedkin has created one of those rare film gems that absolutely must be rediscovered today. Unjustly lost to its time and in any case far ahead of its time, Friedkin's production is marked by passion and gives us a raw, oppressive and highly exciting adventure film full of unforgettable images. And in the end, the viewer is left alone with the bitter realisation that although the mission is accomplished, it makes absolutely no difference, for the inevitable is merely delayed a little.