Have rewatched California recently, and even if I see the film now more positive, it still remains a mixed quality work.
The uneveness of the film is obvious.
The 1st half is about the struggle for survival of the confederate soldiers in the aftermath of the civilwar, but similar to The Hellbenders it lacks an interesting enough perspective to catch my interest. Mud combined with washed out colors became long since cliches for showing the war. Also the Vilmos Zsigmond style lighting, which is overused by the photography, had becom still a visual cliche in the late 70s.
But if you watch California youāll understand easily why these last SWs are often called Twilight Spaghettis.
Then there is a bridging section with a bit farming (made by people who had not the slightest ideas about farming, which in this film disturbed me) and a quickly developed romance to set the basis for the search/revenge of the 2nd half. Too shortly developed to create an emotianal involvement.
The 2nd half then suddenly turns the whole thing into a SW, and even if some elements of the 1st half are still present, most of what we had seen up to this point wasnāt excatly necessary for the rest of Californiaās runtime.
Now the film surprisingly turns the Raimund Harmstorff character into a tragic figure, who now himself became a victim of the new times, and suddenly there seems to be a not expected connection between Gemma and him. But again this new elements of the story are hardly established, when the film hastily ends in a usual way, instead of intensifying the relationship of the men.
At least California is like all of Lupo SWs often good to look at, with an affectionate production design, several nicely made scenes, but as an overall effect it also leaves me behind a bit unsatisfied.
Like in all of the last attempts to make again a āseriousā SW after the heydays of the genre lay still behind, here we have again, instead of the typical Morricone like SW score, a 70s pop music influenced soundtrack. (Compare 4 of the Apocalypse, Keoma, Mannaja, Silver Saddle)
And this one sounds with itās synthesizer passages and itās overproduced drum sound terrible to my ears. And rather inappropiate to the movie.
I had high expectations for this one since I usually like SPWās that came late in the cycle but was dissapointed by this one. It seems that the beginning is just an over long prelude to the real plot of the story which really actually starts after the second half of the movie. 2 out of 5 stars.
First the disc:
I didnāt think it was up to any standards
Actually, I found it a rather poor release:
I think the sets (western town) used in the film, were really delapidated and worn-out
I Keoma they were used to the same effect (watch the opening scene, Nero riding through a town blown apart during the Civil War)
All in all a good film, along with Keoma the best of the twilight spaghettis (havenāt seen Silver Saddle, though)
Watched it recently. Is the girl telling California that she is pregnant? ??? Cannot remember such a line. The Dialogue at the end was like this: Helen: Sorry Michael I just couldnāt manage to die. California: We are going home and forget .
Iām also not quite a fan of the soundtrack of California but the Keoma Crying was much more annyoing. The fighting scene between Harmsdorf and Gemma was great. I like this Western with an apocalyptic feeling and found the scenes in the Ghost Town pretty good.
I just remebered that one thing that really bothered me was the fact that when gemma and bose get into a fight with some cowboys, gemmaās character was a sergeant or something in the war and had to kick all the assesfor bose. While bose was a lieutenant and got the living shit beat out of him by some lowly cowboy! It doesnāt make sense. >:( ???
Thought this was a fine entry as one of the last of a genre. Gemma was on top of his game, great cast, and a well-moving storyline. One of the great SW scenes with Gemma and the whiskey bottle. IMO certainly better than Keoma or Mannaja. By the way, kudos to all who reviewed this film.
[quote=āAceHigh, post:37, topic:947ā]korano, the star always is the toughest, no matter his rank ;)[/quote]I guess your right. Miguel Bose doesnāt look tough at all.
