Rhapsodies

This week for my film selection I picked up a sub-genre that I’d never heard of, the Acid Western. The Acid Western tries to grasp the symbolism and myth of the west in such films as Shane or The Searchers while embracing the cynicism of the spaghetti western and “conjure up a crazed version of autodestructive white America at its most solipsistic, hankering after its own lost origins”.

The first film on my list was Enzo G. Castellaria’s Keoma. Keoma Shannon (Franco Nero) is a half breed ex soldier who has been wandering the desert. He arrives in his home town that is being torn apart by fear of plague and death, controlled by a petty tyrant allied with Keomo’s hated half-brothers. Can Keoma save the town? 

I was initially interested in this film because I heard it was a western version of Bergman’s Seventh Seal. And while for the most part the similarities are subtle enough that you’ll only notice if you are explicitly looking for them, this was still a very interesting film. I liked the visuals that are filmed in a sepia filter that reminded me of old colored prints. The editing was also fascinating. This is especially apparent how Castelleria handles flashbacks. This is especially apparent in the gripping opening scene. (which is awesome for other reasons) An old woman (who may or may not be Death) who is talking to Keoma turns away to look at what turns out to be a past. Such scenes have you committed to watching the entire film.

However much of this was dragged down by far too many talking head close-ups during dialogue and near obsession with slow-motion whenever a bad guy was shot. 

The next film on my list, Jan Kounen’s Blueberry (called Renegade in the States), an adaptation of the comic by the late great Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius, tells the story of John Blueberry (Vincent Cassel ). A man who was raised by Indians and is now the Marshall of a small western town. When a villain from his past returns it is his job to stop them while protecting both his town and the nearby Indian community.

Despite my love of Moebius’s work I’ve only ever seen a few pages of Blueberry so I have absolutely no idea how close to the original material this is. For the most part, this was a very… pretty film. However the longer it went the less sense it made. To the point that it ended with a twenty-minute long drug-fueled hallucination.