This is a renowned and undeniably interesting Spaghetti Western of the politicized variety which, however, does not make a satisfactory whole. The first half is especially uncertain: his parents having been massacred by land-grabbing Southern aristocrat Mark Damon and his cohorts, a Mexican boy (played by Lou Castel as an adult) is brought up by a family of Quakers; when their rebellious young daughter runs away, he vows to bring her back - however, not only has she been turned into a prostitute in the meantime, but he himself unwittingly disrupts a robbery and becomes a fast-draw overnight, thus making what is perhaps the subgenre's least likely gunslinger (in fact, so inadept is he that he beats his horse with a frying-pan in order to urge it forward)!!
Anaemic cape-wearing Damon (in one of his better roles) seems to have strayed in from some vampire movie, and I was expecting him to bare his fangs at any moment!; he's also something of a racist/misogynist fop with a penchant for speechifying!! There's even some Gothic-style lighting when Damon murders his Mexican wife for helping Castel; unfortunately, this scene and another (in which Castel's 'sister' falls foul of three of Damon's gunmen, one of them her keeper, in the saloon/brothel where she works) seem to have been trimmed in the version I saw (which ran for 102 minutes in PAL format against the official 110!) - for instance, Damon tells his wife just before she expires that she has died a good death but, all the time, the camera is fixed on his expression, so that we don't even know what method he used to dispose of her!!
However, REQUIESCANT (as it was originally called and which is also how Castel is referred to, since he always says prayers over the men he has just killed!) is perhaps best remembered for the presence as actor of controversial film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini (whose distinctive voice has been dubbed even in the Italian-language version)!; still, his role isn't up to much (a Mexican priest in peasant garb who turns up intermittently to spout revolutionary ideology), coming into play mainly towards the end, and could have been played by just anybody; also recruited for the film were Pasolini regulars Franco Citti as a heavy and Ninetto Davoli as a trumpeter (the scene where Pasolini and his gang do an impromptu musical number in a saloon to distract the customers' attention from Castel's 'sabotage' is unintentionally hilarious).
The film's best moments, then, are mostly concentrated in its second half: Castel's realization of who he really is when taken to the place where his people met their doom (featuring a flashback to the opening scene tinted blood-red); a contest between Castel and Damon (shooting drunkenly from a distance at a woman holding candelabras); the duel scene at the saloon, perhaps the most original I've ever watched, in which Castel and blond womanizer Ferruccio Viotti are both standing on a stool and have their heads in a noose - and the first to shoot off the foot of the stool will see the other hang!; the destruction of the abandoned fort in which Castel is presumed dead; and Damon's protracted death scene, which first sees him put out of action by Castel's gunfire and subsequently interred by a tumbling church-bell! Riz Ortolani's score is a good one, too.
Anaemic cape-wearing Damon (in one of his better roles) seems to have strayed in from some vampire movie, and I was expecting him to bare his fangs at any moment!; he's also something of a racist/misogynist fop with a penchant for speechifying!! There's even some Gothic-style lighting when Damon murders his Mexican wife for helping Castel; unfortunately, this scene and another (in which Castel's 'sister' falls foul of three of Damon's gunmen, one of them her keeper, in the saloon/brothel where she works) seem to have been trimmed in the version I saw (which ran for 102 minutes in PAL format against the official 110!) - for instance, Damon tells his wife just before she expires that she has died a good death but, all the time, the camera is fixed on his expression, so that we don't even know what method he used to dispose of her!!
However, REQUIESCANT (as it was originally called and which is also how Castel is referred to, since he always says prayers over the men he has just killed!) is perhaps best remembered for the presence as actor of controversial film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini (whose distinctive voice has been dubbed even in the Italian-language version)!; still, his role isn't up to much (a Mexican priest in peasant garb who turns up intermittently to spout revolutionary ideology), coming into play mainly towards the end, and could have been played by just anybody; also recruited for the film were Pasolini regulars Franco Citti as a heavy and Ninetto Davoli as a trumpeter (the scene where Pasolini and his gang do an impromptu musical number in a saloon to distract the customers' attention from Castel's 'sabotage' is unintentionally hilarious).
The film's best moments, then, are mostly concentrated in its second half: Castel's realization of who he really is when taken to the place where his people met their doom (featuring a flashback to the opening scene tinted blood-red); a contest between Castel and Damon (shooting drunkenly from a distance at a woman holding candelabras); the duel scene at the saloon, perhaps the most original I've ever watched, in which Castel and blond womanizer Ferruccio Viotti are both standing on a stool and have their heads in a noose - and the first to shoot off the foot of the stool will see the other hang!; the destruction of the abandoned fort in which Castel is presumed dead; and Damon's protracted death scene, which first sees him put out of action by Castel's gunfire and subsequently interred by a tumbling church-bell! Riz Ortolani's score is a good one, too.