MovieChat Forums > Southern Comfort (1981) Discussion > Bowden Explanation(Seeking Spoilers)

Bowden Explanation(Seeking Spoilers)


I watched this film on an extremely scratched disk and the entire assault on the cajun trapper's house was basically gone. Could anyone explain to me what happened to Bowden to make him stop talking? I looked at scene selection and saw a picture of a dog attacking and another of Bowden with some red paint on his chest but that is all I have to go on.
Thanks

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He basically just flipped out, they arrested the cajun pretty easily and without a fight and then Bowden just blew up the house and stopped talking, out of nowhere.

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The officer killed was his best mate,and he took it real bad,it took time to sink in i guess.

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Judging from his reaction to Stuckey's stupid joke, he didn't have both oars in the water to begin with. A nasty situation like that would push an unstable individual over the edge.

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"...The critics also said that the Cajuns Hunters must have been clairvoyant and it was unbelievable how they could set traps how they couldn’t have set up the traps in the vast swamp knowing the location movements, etc. Understanding the real ending also helps to understand how this was possible.

Bowden predicted and foreshadowed when he said basically all 9 of them were already dead at the end of the prayer during the burial of Cribbs and SSgt Poole. Although all the men reach there own collapse mentally right before they are killed, manifest in 9 characters ways. this would explain Bowden’s complete nervous breakdown so early as he was the first to realize they were all doomed..."

please check out yhrw whole story visit the Southern Comfort Ending post to see what really happend

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Like Stucky said, he just went completely crazy.

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I thought, when I watched the movie, that the reason he blew the house up was to keep his unit from stealing the guy's food and other belongings. I thought he sympathized with the locals, and when the guy punched the Cajun in the jaw, that was what sent him over the edge.

I've seen most people saying he was avenging the murder of the Sergeant, and that makes sense too.

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I've seen most people saying he was avenging the murder of the Sergeant, and that makes sense too.

That's the explanation he gives. Something like "I really respected Poole."

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I guess Bowden was emotionally unstable. There was no real hint of it before he blew up the trapper's house. How could a guy that crazy hold a job teaching and coaching high school football and serve in the National Guard?


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A gradual descent into madness, starting with his reaction to the killing of Poole (he panics and tips a canoe over), continuing with the "corporal joke" (he burns down the Cajun hut) and then after Cribbs is killed, he offers the dead men prayer, goes mute after that and is tied up in case he attacks other people.
There is nothing improbable about someone unstable like that holding authority - it is a pretty flawed unit anyway.


"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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