It’s a Polish Western made in 2006 by Piotr Uklanski. I understand it played at the Venice Film Festival in 2007. I saw it at SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) as part of their Non-Western Westerns film series (which, sadly, is coming to a close with Yojimbo this Saturday).
What a trippy film. For those of you who like your westerns weird look no further.
The title is about 99% ironic but, strangely, there is a love story in it.
At the showing I attended (with only about 25 people in the audience) mostly everyone left befuddled and/or bemused.
It references many other westerns from Howard Hawks to Sergio Leone. But it turns the conventions inside out. It is a great looking movie and, like Sukiyaki Western Django, the actors speak their lines in English albeit sometimes heavily accented.
If any of you saw the Australian film The Proposition, imagine that film but directed by Samuel Beckett.
I saw summer love on a Friday and it percolated through by subconscious over the weekend. The more it settled in, the more I liked it.
It is being released on DVD on April 29th in the States. Because Americans don’t do irony very well it has been retitled Dead Man’s Bounty for the DVD release.
Val Kilmer has a role in it but his performance is, shall we say, “lifeless”.
I chuckle to think what the unsuspecting western fan will think when they watch this, expecting a Bounty Hunter film with Val Kilmer.
I’m sure there’re fans of the genre on this site that will really appreciate this strange, interesting film.
I love to hear what anybody else who has seen this thought of it. 8)
[quote=“Romaine Fielding, post:1, topic:1017”]Has anybody besides me seen this?
I saw it at SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) as part of their Non-Western Westerns film series (which, sadly, is coming to a close with Yojimbo this Saturday).[/quote]
I havn’t seen it (and hadn’t heard of it til now) - but would like to do so. Great looking poster/cover!
Is there some sort of ‘Western’ vibe going on maybe with the artworld?
I was invited up to Edinburgh recently and walked into a gallery called the Fruitmarket. I’m naturally wearing my best Django (the) T-shirt, and walk in to the theme music to OUATITW. Freaky I thought - did they know I was about to arrive and put it on specially?
Anyway, seems they’ve got a western-theme arty-fartiness thing going called
Print the Legend: The Myth of the West
If anybody’s up there … re-title.com contemporary art [url]http://www.re-title.com/exhibitions/FruitmarketGallery.asp[/url]
Haven’t seen it though. By the way, I like the American title a lot more.[/quote]
I think most people would agree with you but I like “Summer Love” more.
It actually comes from the title song which is played over the credits. Summer Love is a hokey, corney love song performed by, of all people, John Davidson. Many will not remember this guy but some Americans might. He co-hosted a 70’s TV show called That’s Incredible! and made frequent guest appeances on shows like Love American Style or The Love Boat. Yuck! But the hokey title song fits perfectly with the ironic, askew perspective of this film.
Another peculiar song on the soundtrack is “I’m A Gun”, a spoken word performance by Lorne Green.
Like I said, this is a weird movie.
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:3, topic:1017”]I havn’t seen it (and hadn’t heard of it til now) - but would like to do so. Great looking poster/cover!
Is there some sort of ‘Western’ vibe going on maybe with the artworld?
I was invited up to Edinburgh recently and walked into a gallery called the Fruitmarket. I’m naturally wearing my best Django (the) T-shirt, and walk in to the theme music to OUATITW. Freaky I thought - did they know I was about to arrive and put it on specially?
Anyway, seems they’ve got a western-theme arty-fartiness thing going called
Print the Legend: The Myth of the West
If anybody’s up there … re-title.com contemporary art [url]http://www.re-title.com/exhibitions/FruitmarketGallery.asp[/url][/quote]
I hope it’s a trend!!! That’s an interesting exhibit you linked to. I’ll have to read the whole thing a little later.
I just got a cool book this week that is a really nice exhibit catalog from an exhibit that showed (some time ago) at the Autry Center for the American West in SoCal. It is a book/exhibit about Polish poster art for westerns, American & otherwise. This book can be gotten real cheap now and I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Western-Amerykanski-Polish-Poster-Art/dp/0295978139/ref=ed_oe_p
It is particularly interesting and useful in regards to a context for Summer Love.
[quote=“Romaine Fielding, post:5, topic:1017”]I just got a cool book this week that is a really nice exhibit catalog from an exhibit that showed (some time ago) at the Autry Center for the American West in SoCal. It is a book/exhibit about Polish poster art for westerns, American & otherwise. This book can be gotten real cheap now and I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Western-Amerykanski-Polish-Poster-Art/dp/0295978139/ref=ed_oe_p
It is particularly interesting and useful in regards to a context for Summer Love.[/quote]
That does look like an interesting book RF. I might just pick me up a copy.
And nice to have you back on the forum by the way.
Not sure if I really liked this, at least it could have been better. It reminded me a lot of Proposition in it’s gritty violence and nihilistic characters and also Jarmusch’s Dead Man because of some artistic touch. Especially the cinematography is very effective.
But Dead Man had lots of scenes with comical relief which helped the film of being of too artsy which is absent from the Summer Love. The film just tries to bee too serious which in the end makes it too painful to sit through. Well, there’s at least one joke and that’s having Val Kilmer in the cast playing dead man. The english dialogue has some heavy polish accents which made it kinda hard to follow.
