Little Big Man represents the highest point in Arthur Penn's career. The film was made soon after his masterpiece Bonnie and Clyde and stands, in my opinion, right beside it as one of the most significant achievements not only of Arthur Penn's work, but also of the world cinema in general. Unfortunately the chain of remarkable movies began with this two wasn't destined to continue, with director's following films proving to be quite disappointing. But nevertheless Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man remain as the two fine notables for which Arthur Penn will always be fondly remembered.
Also mustn't be discarded the role of the time when the Little Big Man was made, the turbulent era of the Vietnam War, which most certainly found its reflection on the film, critically paralleled in portrayal of the ruthless and mindless slaughter of the Indians by the American troops.
The film's story is told by Jack Crabb, a very old man of more than 100 years old, the only remaining witness of the events he is telling to an oral histories collector.
We follow his life story as he is kidnapped and raised by the Indians, after a few years escaping from them only to return back again to witness the brutal death of his friends and loved ones from the hands of the American soldiers under the command of vicious and eccentric General George Armstrong Custer who finally has to pay for his inhuman deeds in the battle of the Little Big Horn that is shown in the end of the film and which might be considered as the natural consequence of the brutal tactics employed by the American troops in conquering the Indian territories, and finally represents a significant lightening of the karmic burden for them, achieved by the purificatory and relieving death in the fight with the Indians whose victory symbolize only a temporarily successful culmination of destined-not-to-last-long struggle.
Though in Jack Crabb's life story we basically revisit a number of very familiar for a Western genre fan fields, one of them being the battlefield of the Little Big Horn, the masterful way in which revisiting is done turn it into an unforgettable viewing experience during which you'll most certainly find yourself moved from laughing at the perfect comic moments of parody on some of the most used Western clichés to shedding tears when tragic happenings unveil on the screen, always remaining absorbed by it, mesmerized by the superb acting delivered by all of the actors involved and the film's visually vast beauty. 10/10
