Deep Focus Review - The Definitives - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

The Definitives

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, and Amrish Puri
Rated: PG
Runtime: 118 min.

by Brian Eggert

Entered into
The Definitives:
05/15/2008

Original Release Date:
05/23/1984

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom moves beyond simply replicating its predecessor Raiders of the Lost Ark, and avoids repeating setups and stunts for an assured box office hit. Whereas the first is comparably light and funny, the filmmakers made their sequel notoriously dark and violent, earning censures from both critics and audiences expecting a carbon copy of the first. In the vein of classic adventure stories, this film is incised with a horror edge. Thrills offer less assurance that all will be well. Stakes are seemingly higher. Narrative changes notwithstanding, Steven Spielberg polishes his 1984 production, inscribing the whole with his magic touch, bringing his audience to the edge of their seats and pulling them back to safety at the last possible moment.

Again inspired by Saturday matinee serials and pulp magazines, the plot involves blood drinking, human sacrifice, and child slavery—certainly not themes contingent with family viewing. Spielberg captains us into the more frightening aspects of the franchise’s Golden Age origins, into a Heart of Darkness explored in glossies like Weird Tales and Oriental Stories. He surveys a world dripping with horror-based Orientalism and stereotypes not adhering to political correctness as much as a thematic exercise in kinetic and atmospheric aesthetics. But for every frightening image and every suggestive depiction of Eastern culture, the film’s humor and energy integrate to an amalgamation of genre-spanning entertainment. Indeed, as Indiana Jones’ new love interest Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) sings in the film’s opening scene (a Busby Berkeley-inspired song and dance number), “Anything goes!”

Consider Spielberg’s familiar uses of classic serial imagery: A room slowly grows smaller and smaller as the ceiling lowers and metal spikes emerge from above and below, the skeletons of past victims clinging to the metal points. A dizzying mine car chase sequence, complete with lava bubbling beneath the ramshackle rails, is possibly the only time in film history where a rollercoaster ride becomes as gripping as the real thing. Temple of Doom is the most purely entertaining entry in the series because, as opposed to the first, the impenetrable nature of our archeologist hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is questioned. At one point, Indiana is brainwashed by the film’s villains, making his otherwise assured victory questionable as he remains no longer in command of his escape. This is, of course, just another device in a succession of devices. Popcorn must be had by the bucketload to appease these unrelenting cliffhangers, the oohs and ahhs of the production.

A number of these sequences originated back during the pre-Raiders of the Lost Ark brainstorming sessions between Spielberg, producer George Lucas, and writer Lawrence Kasdan. Since the mostly desert and jungle locations of the first film barred the possibility of a life raft escape down a snowy mountainside, this stunt and others were set aside until the sequel—or prequel rather, since Temple of Doom takes place one year before the events in Raiders.

Lucas himself has suggested that because of his 1983 divorce, his temperament demanded a more sinister tone for this Indy prequel, matching the pointedly dark, artistically winning mood of the second entry in his Star Wars franchise.With The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reached the series’ pinnacle by leaving his audience in limbo, displacing characters, and ending in tragedy; nevertheless the picture struck gold with audiences and critics. In maintaining the breakneck Indiana Jones actioner speed, Lucas sought to interweave thematic darkness into this franchise, placing his MacGuffin (Sankara stones) into the hands of human-sacrificing Kali worshipers. Spielberg voiced his adverse concerns for the ominous departure; his own signature style capitalized on happy endings and pointed optimism, with intermittent departures like Schindler’s List, Minority Report, and Munich. But Lucas, having previously explored a dour dystopian future in his debut feature THX 1138, found such territory artistically appealing and, at least given his turbulent personal life, familiar.

Lucas asked husband-and-wife writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to tackle the script, given their mutual interest in Indian culture and mysticism. Their story follows Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones from Shanghai where he barely escapes gangsters at Club Obi Wan, down a Himalayan mountain into India, and there commissioned by locals to retrieve a magical stone believed to sustain their village’s prosperity. Without it, their fields dry up and people starve. Joined by twelve-year-old sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) and the perpetually screaming aforementioned nightclub singer Ms. Scott, Indiana ventures into the critter-filled jungle, finding a great terror awaiting his convoy at the home of the new adolescent Maharajah (Raj Singh). Inside Pankot Palace, remnants of an evil cult worshiping the goddess Kali revere her construction as a force drunk on the blood of her enemies, and they follow her lesson.

Within moments of arriving at Pankot, Indiana’s troupe and indeed the audience are subject to a number of eyebrow-raising cultural representations, which, amid other factors, has earned Temple of Doom a controversial reputation. Consider the tongue-in-cheek dinner scene where throughout discussions of bleak Kali rumors surrounding the palace, Indy and other guests are served a smorgasbord of impossible foods: unborn baby pythons sucked down like spaghetti, beetle meat slurped from the shell like an oyster, bloody eyeball soup, and for dessert—chilled monkey brains served still in the head. Certainly audiences are not expected to believe Hindus partake in such bizarre foods. And yet, scenes like this one are damned as blatant stereotypes.

It is doubtful that Huyck and Katz, or any of the filmmakers, sought to represent India as a backwards land filled with savages devouring inedible foods and soullessly forcing children into whip-driven labor. Instead, judge the depiction as one signifying evil in whatever form it might take. That India was chosen reflects no cultural finger-pointing, simply an exotic backdrop for Indiana Jones to explore. Saturday matinee serials commonly found their hero penetrating some distant land, where foreign villains engage in absurd activities rarely based in fact. These accused images remain characterizations of evil, not an entire culture—or the barren Indian village our hero seeks to defend would not remain so pleasant, understanding, and peaceful. Nevertheless, after demanding to preview the script prior to shooting, the Indian government denied the production permission to film in their country, citing such problematic examples within the script. Spielberg moved his crew to Sri Lanka for exteriors laden with fruit bat skies and jungle landscapes. All interiors were flawlessly constructed in-studio with fiery lighting by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and eye-popping production design by Elliot Scott. As a result of India’s problems with the material, the film was banned temporarily upon its release—a ban lifted shortly thereafter, time healing any offended parties.

Critics pinned their disapprovals onto Temple of Doom’s lapel, balking at the overt violence permitted under an inappropriate PG rating. Spielberg initially defended the film, underling “the picture is not called Temple of Roses, it is called Temple of Doom.” To be sure, the swastika symbolized inherent villainy in Raiders, but evil could not be so effortlessly suggested with the largely conceptual Kali cult. No emblem would encapsulate them so singularly, and so, their atrocities must be shown. We witness priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) reach into a victim’s chest cavity and remove the beating heart. The still-conscious human sacrifice is then lowered into a lava pit where he burns alive; up above, the heart burst into flames. Hyuck would later comment, “The audience must see evil, any kind of evil. You must show some of what that evil is in order to have a convincing fable. If anything, I feel it's a problem with the ratings system, not with the movie."

Gremlins, another 1984 film Spielberg produced with Joe Dante directing, received positive reactions amid a sprinkling of harsh criticism from ratings hounds for the ineffective PG label, arguing children under pre-teen ages will find the material overly violent and too scary, and parents should have ample warning. To circumvent disapproval of his future pictures, Spielberg himself appealed to Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti for a new category, ushering in the PG-13 rating. Harrison Ford too initially defended the Indy prequel as an example of heroism, not evil, therefore acceptable for children. But all involved soon stopped defending their work, twisted their views to match the media’s, and began apologizing for the perceived problems with Temple of Doom.

Given the stigma surrounding the indisputable bloody content of this Indiana Jones prequel, we must reflect upon Raiders of the Lost Ark and ask: Was the original any different? Three years later, audiences seemed to forget about melting Nazi faces, thugs chopped to bits in propeller blades, and a shockingly gory finale punctuated with a Frenchman’s head exploding. This series comes riddled with violence furthering the danger involved in Indy’s eventual escape; without upping the ante, there is no risk, thus nothing to involve audiences. Scenes like the heart removal build suspense in the later sequence when Indy and Mola Ram struggle on the downed suspension bridge: We see the evil priests’ hand reach for our hero’s chest, causing us to wriggle in our seats, that graphic image of the removed heart branded on the brain.

Adventure stories are not intended to evoke feelings of comfort and safety, but expel any such notion and dangle the audience over the proverbial pit. Indiana Jones’ exploits appeal to our Inner Child capable of suspending disbelief to ridiculous extremes, involving us in fantastical comic-book escapades. The inclusion of Short Round into the film’s hero base and enslaved children requiring rescue directly associates the viewer, as Spielberg’s narratives often do (see E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial or A.I. Artificial Intelligence), with children, who look up to and are eventually rescued by our savior Indiana Jones. The experience remains sharpened to a savage edge perhaps too intense for young children, but wildly enjoyable blockbuster escapism nonetheless. The film literally traps viewers inside the Temple of Doom, spending more than half of the picture exploring the horrors within, shaking awake our slumbering Inner Child and scaring the hell out of it—all meant in good fun, of course.

In an interview with Premier, Spielberg claimed he was eager to complete The Last Crusade to “apologize for the second one.” What is there to apologize for? Trying something new? A darker tone than the first? Is it more believable that archeologist Dr. Jones engage in the same set of analogous circumstances over and over, or that he explore various cultures the world over? Whenever filmmakers follow a hugely successful property with a sequel or prequel, expectation becomes the film’s greatest enemy. Here, heavily publicized criticisms immediately following its release reside within the audience’s expectation and comparisons to the first, and have little bearing on the quality of the production, superb special effects, or triumphant entertainment value. But then again, all adventures exist under the shadow of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Exceeding or even matching the original is an impossibility, except that Spielberg and Lucas intended to do neither, only to bring another thrilling blockbuster to the screen, which they did to marvelous effect.

A true wonder of Hollywood invention, unlike so many of its kind, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is both great entertainment and great filmmaking. Often we can only expect one or the other. Despite recurrent criticisms for its innovations on the series’ tropes, reflect upon the simplistic, uncomplicated joy of the action, comic chemistry between performers, and unrelentingly feral activity painted onscreen. Never forget the Indiana Jones films’ theoretical foundation in diversionary amusement, and perhaps view this entry as the most dangerous of the lot, unwilling to allow its audience uninvolved viewings, and exposing us to consummate, explicit perils unequaled in the series.