A Man Who's Free Never Dies: Keoma (1976)

Considering that I am devoting the entire month to westerns it was only a matter of time before I came across a film involving Franco Nero, whose expansive career was heavily involved with his role as Django, a character Tarantino would morph for his recent take on the genre.  While I had high hopes of actually watching a Django flick things simply did not work out and I was instead able to obtain Keoma for a screening.  Fortunately, while it was not my first choice boy was it a blessing in disguise, because for all intents and purposes, Keoma is everything I could have possibly hoped for in an over-the-top spaghetti western.  In fact, it is an absurdly heavy handed movie that appears to, nonetheless, take itself very seriously.  I could pull from a variety of different examples from how this movie just blows subtlety out the window, whether it be the haunting and very on-the-nose soundtrack or the insistence that every single death be delivered in an incredibly slow-motion fashion, Keoma wants to be intense, and while its push for excess can be...excessive, it is what helps to make it an entirely enjoyable and incredibly engaging film.  Of course, what proves to be the biggest surprise in my opinion is that it also incorporates a handheld camera frequently, capturing scenes in natural lighting and grit.  If one refers to the release date though, it kind of makes sense, considering that 1976 may well be the greatest single year in filmmaking, and a moment in filmmaking where everything changed, in some cases for the better, but mostly for the worst.  The attempt at a heightened sense of reality that occurs in Taxi Driver or Nashville is poetic, realized and absolutely spectacular and there are certainly moments of this within Keoma, although I would never dare suggest that it is even remotely on similar ground.  Keoma sets out to consider the very real issues of racism and miscengination in a contemporary setting and to what degree those experiences have affected new generations, of course, given its wild nature the film only occasionally succeeds at these deeply philosophical endeavors, but when it does prove well-delivered it is nothing short of marvelous to watch.

Keoma (Franco Nero) is a man whose past has returned to him literally when he arrives back to his hometown after service in the Civil War on the side of the Union.  Keoma, is particularly reluctant to return to his town, first because of his half-white and half-Native American identity which has brought him much turmoil in his life, a fact emphasized by his tenuous relationship with his father, as well as his step-brothers who have mocked him for his entire life, an act that Keoma clearly still internalizes and plays out in visual flashbacks.  Furthermore, Keoma's return to his less than stellar past is made all the more unbearable when he discovers that his town is suffering from the scourge of a plague so drastic that it appears as though it is existing solely in a post-apocalyptic space where entire buildings are burned to the ground and any sort of business fails to thrive, let along stay on its feet.  While it appears as though the desolation is solely the result of the previously mentioned plague, Keoma catches wind of information that suggests a tyrannical man named Caldwell (Donald O'Brien) is actually the individual responsible for the terrible actions.  Realizing that it is his duty to both protect his city, as well as justify his existence and relevance despite, to use his step-brothers' term, a "half-breed." Keoma takes it upon himself to standup against the terrible ways of Caldwell and bring back to his town the necessary supplies and medicine to save everyone still alive from a certain plague ridden death.  Alongside Keoma are his former slave by circumstance and now recovering alcoholic George (Woody Strode) and the pregnant plague victim Lisa (Olga Karlatos) who help in all the ways possible to assure good comes back to their desolate village.  While Lisa is primarily moral support, George is actually quite skilled with a bow and lethal to a degree.  Eventually Keoma comes face to face with all those who had done injustice to either himself or the townsfolk teaching them their lesson with a swift knife or bullet to the chest, unfortunately, in order for Keoma to finally be born again, it invariably requires the loss of something.

Keoma provides for an interesting talking point in regards to the western as genre and pairs quite nicely in regards to Shane, which also includes a sort of wandering male figure, although in regards to this spaghetti western it is much more of a redemption/return story.  What makes Keoma particularly fascinating is that aside from a genetic difference, one that is only deemed less by those around him, he is an incredilby infallible character.  Viewers will quickly realize that there is nothing Keoma cannot do whether it be shooting down a posse of men who clearly outnumber him or landing a knife in a man's throat with perfect accuracy every time.  Hell the guy can even ride two horse at once, not to mention survive being drug behind one, or tied up to a wagon wheel for days at a time.  This heightened degree of perfection is certainly helpful considering the Christ narrative that eventually emerges within the film, but it is not a full on passion play of sorts so the fact that Keoma is so damn perfect becomes somewhat distancing at times.  It is easy to feel the tension of the first few fights when it is not apparent that Keoma can escape anything, however, when he is able to successfully out maneuver those around him, or receive help well before he needs it placing a vested interest in him as a character becomes quite difficult.  One could almost argue that Keoma's mythological stature, paired with quite the theme song, are almost mocking the sort of gunslinger imagery of the western, questioning the very nature of figures like Shane or Chance to pull from movies I have mentioned recently, yet it is also a movie that desperately wants to be cool, almost making a superhero out of Keoma.  In fact, the villainous nature of Caldwell is so inexplicably terrible that one almost assumes he has to be evil to create the perfect contrast for the saintly and good Keoma.  While none of this serves to ruin the film to any noticeable degree it is something I certainly struggled with while viewing and continue to toss around in my head well after it was over.  Perhaps that is the very nature of Keoma, to create such an absurdly infallable character that one does not embrace him for his hip, cool demeanor, but, instead; for his decidedly implausible nature.

Key Scene:  While there are cool scenes I want to draw attention here to the film's soundtrack.  As a friend put it, it is the only soundtrack that he simultaneously loves and hates.  While that statement may seem absurd those who have viewed the film will completely understand his sentiments.

The bluray for this is dirt cheap and even comes with another equally intriguing spaghetti western, there is really no justification not to grab a copy.

A Friend Of Mine Went On Carousel, Now He's Gone: Logan's Run (1976)

The very nature of the dystopian sci-fi thriller is to lull audiences with awe-inspiring imagery only to counter such beauty with jarring realities of a nightmarish and terribly Orwellian futurescape, however, very few films manage to take the concept and stretch it out over a feature length film and not completely lose steam halfway through, this certainly happens at times during The Omega Man and Soylent Green, perhaps Charlton Heston is to blame.  However, when a director and its subject matter gets it right the result can be quite astounding, as is certainly the case with THX 1138, which is both a visual feast and a narrative masterpiece.  While not quite on the level of the early Lucas work, Logan's Run does indeed manage to be an impressionist vision of the future that substantiates itself with a stellar narrative and commentary on the future.  Hell, it even proves to have come out in one of the most seminal years in filmmaking, setting along side Taxi Driver, Cria Cuervos and Nashville, all films that i have provided praise for to some degree in on this blog, although the latter was, technically, released a year earlier.  Logan's Run is particularly good, because while it certainly makes viewers aware of its showy elements, whether they be the expansive miniature sets intended to display the future, or the heavy emphasis on stop-motion special effects and hand drawn animation, all elements exist as a means to expand on the story, as opposed to distract viewers from any degree of lack, although it is admittedly hard not to become completely overwhelmed by something like the carousel scene, which works on a highly poetic level, as well as a grounded undermining of the notion of moving on to a "better place."  I would argue that very few contemporary directors within the sci-fi genre manage to comprehend the future in quite this way, except maybe The Wachowski's but even then their works clearly exist with a degree of homage to this works Platonic philosophy.  If all of this fails to sell this cinematic masterpiece, there is some glorious hair going on that even includes the likes of a young Farah Fawcett.

Logan's Run is set in the future, 2274 to be exact, wherein lifespans cut off at the age of thirty and individuals are sent onto Carousel a spiraling upward magical ride that leads those at cut-off to a sort of rebirth, meaning, of course, that no individual within this society is old, nor has ever seen an old person.  While a majority of the citizens gladly embrace their assumed rebirth a considerable amount of individuals are suspicious of the carousel as a form of population control and attempt to avoid their turn on it, becoming known as Runners in the process, precisely because they must run away from the world in order to avoid such a fate.  In comes Logan 5 (Michael York) and his friend Francis 7 (Richard Jordan) as Sandman, whose jobs within this society are to prevent runners from escaping, even if it means killing them to do so.  Logan 5, unlike Francis 7 begins to reconsider his role as a Sandman, and his eventual fate at the carousel when he takes one runners possession to a processor, and discovers their ankh necklace to be a symbol of eternal life.  The computer in rebellion pushes Logan 5's processing date ahead, forcing him to flee in fear of carousel, becoming a runner himself, acquiring the help of another runner Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter) to help escape the colony.  This escape leads them deep underground where they discover a frozen underworld in which the bodies of those runners frozen, as well as food kept from the outside world.  Box (Roscoe Lee Browne) a robot attempts to stop them from running, but Logan 5 and Jessica 6 eventually escape relatively unharmed, even managing to find the overgrown world of Washington D.C., although they are unfamiliar with it, finding a the aged statue of Abraham Lincoln quite bizarre.  During their exploration they met an old man, played supremely by Peter Ustinov, who explains to them the world outside of their colony, as well as the joys of growing old.  This revelation, in the eyes of Logan 5 and Jessica 6, must be shared with their colony, and after fighting off those who disagree, including Francis 7, they share the experiences of the old man with their colony, as they all begin to rise out of the cave of lies and false hopes of recycling.

While the main theme of this film certainly concerns issues of overpopulation, sustenance and fears of growing old, as do many science fiction works, it is hard not to consider how excellent of a consideration this is of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  I know I refer to this quite regularly on the blog, but Logan's Run is truly a stellar adaptation of one of the great philosophers most universal teachings.  I will assume readers are quite familiar with this work and, as such, will not elaborate to heavily, however, I do want to note that it is essentially about living in metaphorical darkness, and seeing a light,  or becoming educated and attempting to share those realizations with persons still living in the darkness of ignorance.  Director Michael Anderson extends this notion to argue that the ignorance of people living in Logan 5's colony is a direct result of consumer excess, as much of the colony is quite reminiscent of a large shopping mall.  They chose to agree to young age and the comforts of conspicuous consumption, even fearing wrinkles or old age, let alone a person who even begins to question the possibility of something aside from carousel.  The film deals with seeing the light in a very literal sense, in that Logan 5 and Jessica 6 emerge from the cave into a blistering sun, although it to occurs in a educational sense, as they purposefully emerge in a dilapidated Washington D.C., a veritable locale of knowledge as guiding light.  However, it is their interaction with an individual who is equally, if not more, happy than they living outside the colony and growing old that inspires them to share their experiences, particularly those relating to learning.  It is also no accident, that the old man quotes T.S. Eliot, whose poetry would personify the idea of expanding the human consciousness to things beyond even the tangible, although as the closing moments of the film do emphasize, it is quite often the quantifiable elements that help move people from blind ignorance to enlightenment.

Key Scene:  The entire "face change" sequence is a god damn vision of cinematic dystopia, that is at once beautiful and nightmarish.

Buy this on bluray, it is a spectacle and well worth seeing in the highest quality possible.