I have a question for the group. In the films Django the Bastard and Django Kill… If you Live Shoot, are the Django characters returnees from the beyond? Or are they survivors of the massacres unleashed on them and their cohorts?
What I like about both these films (among other things) is that this is never made 100% clear and is open to interpretation from the audience. I don’t think there is a definitive answer on either but I do like a good discussion on possible theories.
I agree Phil! I would love to hear other people’s opinions on this.
I never really got a sense of Milian being from beyond the grave in Django Kill. I mean, yes, he literally climbs out of a mass grave at the very beginning but it feels more like the act of a guy who’s been accidentally winged rather than mortally wounded as per his would-be killers’ intentions. He demonstrates vulnerability as a character and most of the plot of Django Kill goes on around him. He’s largely a bystander in his own picture. Doesn’t seem much like a vengeful and impervious harbinger from another plane of existence to me.
Django the Bastard is a more frustrating one imho because, rather than being purposely ambiguous about whether or not Steffen is a supernatural entity (which would’ve been a good thing), the movie wants it both ways at once, which isn’t the same thing at all. He’s painted very much as an avenging spirit from the outset, but develops vulnerability later on when a bit of peril is required.
Ultimately then, I’d say that:
Django Kill - Milian’s character is NOT supernatural.
Django the Bastard - Steffen’s character IS supernatural, but wasn’t written with a great deal of guile.
Just IMO of course.
I feel the same way about Django the Bastard. He comes across at least initially as a ghostly entity, but then he is eventually shot and bleeds. And your right he is vulnerably at that point after being seemingly an unstoppable avenging spirit. Django Kill is the one that throws me a bit more. The town he rides into with the two Indians is a version of hell in my book, even concluding with the fire at the end. I am up in the air on either.
The directing of Django the Bastard is indeed often suggesting that Steffen is not a real human being, but then as already mentioned, in one scene he bleeds, and frankly said ghosts don’t bleed.
In the more ambitious Django Kill I see it clearer as a possible interpretation, in the context of the film’s slightly surreal character, but again it is left to the viewer how he wants to see it.
Btw there was and is also a discussion about Harmonica in OuTW being also a ghost, but apart from him also being wounded, in that film it would be a bad idea.
If it wasn’t for the brilliant ‘rising’ segment then I would understand such a debate.
Actually it was cause he resists CC, and that is impossible for a human being, in the real world that is, but, Christ, it is a fairy tale, isn’t it? Only not one with ghosts.