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It swiftly gets down to business with a stormy widescreen (dangling oil lamp foregrounded on one side of the frame, scuttling gunslingers on the other), in a flash there's Lang's Moonfleet as a spaghetti Western. The massacre at the ranch house lingers in the orphan's memory as a string of murderous talismans (a tattooed chest, a scarred forehead, a pierced ear), as an adult (John Phillip Law) he's handy with revolvers and more vengefully obsessed than ever. Meanwhile, the wronged partner (Lee Van Cleef) leaves jail to take care of some unfinished business of his own, casually quoting de Laclos ("Revenge is a dish best served cold...") to warn the younger man of indigestion. A familiar structure (Man Without a Star, Nevada Smith) gets a caustic reshuffle, newcomer and old-timer go after the same villains for different reasons and take turns leaving each other stranded in the desert. "You defend yourself almost too well, mister." Not as luxuriant as Leone's or politicized as Corbucci's, Giulio Petroni's particular brand of savage poetry hinges on stateliness suddenly cracked open by a quivering image: Placed at the center of the saloon table, the camera slowly pans to take in the mug of each poker player (and the torso of each showgirl) before a smash zoom drenches the screen red with superimposed close-ups. The West of outlaws who become politicians, "a world full of nervous characters" and fevered Ennio Morricone chorales and "bad investments." Eisenstein's Que Viva México! for the buried hero with a mouthful of salt, for the showdown a stalking sandstorm and a forgiving bullet. "Did you change your mind, hero?" The Borgesian influence on High Plains Drifter is marked, Kill Bill gladly receives it all. With Luigi Pistilli, Mario Brega, Anthony Dawson, and José Torres.
--- Fernando F. Croce |