I’m continuing with my Castellari kick, this time with Keoma, a western shot in Italy. It has one of the most visually stunning opening scenes I can remember: a lone soldier (Franco Nero as Keoma), looking like a bedraggled Jesus, return home from the Civil War only to encounter death in the figure of an old woman who reminds him/ tells us that she’d sought him out before when his homestead was slaughtered as a child. Death will walk with him periodically, like in Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL, a clear influence. I finally understand why people like Tarantino are so entranced with these films. They lack subtlety but not depth; they are beautifully shot with some dazzling compositions, the action is superb; and to say that the melodrama is over the top, whilst true, does not get at why it continues to be so effective. At the end of the film, Keoma the ‘half-breed bastard’ is tied to the wheel of a cart like Jesus, the father who he went to live after his mother was killed, who loved and protected him is now gone; the craven, greedy, half-brothers who tortured his childhood are now in charge, ready to judge and pass sentence. The old black man (Woody Strode) who had taught Keoma to defend himself but who had given up on life after realising that winning the war of ‘Emancipation’ had not made him free is also no longer there. There’s a cholera epidemic raging in the town and a pregnant woman about to give birth. Keoma’s already saved them time and time again. Will any of them lift a finger for  Keoma?  A terrific film with a strange but effective cod-imitation Leonard Cohen score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis.

José Arroyo