Amazing experiments with sound and pictures - Contains Spoilers

unbrokenmetal

The first thing people notice when watching this movie are Castellari's obvious references to Peckinpah: lots of violence in slow motion. The second thing they won't forget is the soundtrack with the male and the female voice. The two singers are narrating the story. Both ideas are stretched a little too much. I find the many unusual camera angles and various other creative experiments more interesting. To name but a few: a) the shooting competition between Keoma and his father is filmed from the target's point of view, b) the amazing shot when Keoma counts his enemies by his fingers – and they appear behind the fingers, c) the crucifixion of Keoma, when the pregnant woman comes to rescue him, d) the appearances of the mystical old woman seem like a quote from `Macbeth', a witch on a stormy heath, her prophecies of death, e) the many brightly colored flashbacks (mainly from Keoma's childhood) are so fluently and frequently integrated, you hardly ever see this in a movie. Most amazing, however, is f) the final shootout, when Keoma kills his 3 adversaries while you hear nothing but the mother's screams while her baby is born. The pictures of lives ended, the sound of new life born, so to speak. Very often in `Keoma', the sound is a comment on what's happening or will happen rather than just the usual noises of the action taking place.

Apart from the fascinating experiments with both picture and sound, the movie would be worth watching for the unconventional story alone. Keoma fights bandits who – in the name of common sense – built a concentration camp for victims of a disease. Remember a doc in any other western who did anything else than cutting a bullet out of somebody's arm? The fear of pestilence helps the bandits to take control over the town. No happy-end, of course: Keoma's father and the woman he loves are dead, and Keoma leaves her baby behind just like that (`he is free, he doesn't need anything'). Franco Nero gives the wildest and most manic performance in his entire career. And he has so many great one-liners (`it's easy to kill someone who's already dead').

The only reason I can imagine why this movie is not ranked equal to the Italian western classics by Leone, Corbucci and Sollima is probably that it was released 6-10 years later, when nobody cared about westerns anymore. I hope you do, especially in this case.

score /10

unbrokenmetal 12 June 2001

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0147892/