Tepepa (Giulio Petroni, 1969)

[morgan]

@titoli

Tepepa on the other hand, even tough it is somewhat of a Quien Sabe? part 2, draws its character and messages in less subtle way. Our Mexican hero this time is revolutionary hero, during the course of the movie he is shown as very noble man so we are led to believe that in the end we will find out that he is wrongly accused (similar to Cuchillo in Big Gundown), but he turns out to be rapist and misogynist: message is that revolution and it’s leaders are nowhere near perfect, there is still work to do. And than kid kills British doctor because “gringo doesn’t likes Mexico”. This is somewhat similar to last message of the Quien Sabe? but I don’t like the ending of the Tepepa while I love the ending of Quien Sabe?. In later, foreigner, although he can be charming and likeable, is mercenary who will step over any body for his personal profit and he is clear symbol of CIA interventions in South America. In Tepepa foreigner is simply a man who seeks revenge for his own personal tragedy and he will help common people when they need his help. So he is a noble man if there ever was one in SWs, yet he is killed at the end simply because “he doesn’t like Mexico”. We are not given the reason why he doesn’t like it, it is probably because his wife was Mexican who was raped and committed suicide in Mexico, so the only reason he doesn’t like it is likely because country reminds him of his personal tragedy. Off course, he was made more likeable probably to make the message more powerful (“Fuck you gringo!” and “The native’s work is to imagine all possible methods for destroying the settler”), but I don’t like it. I don’t like it because it resembles “dangerously casual attitude towards violence” and “confused, unfocussed, disputed and frequently reductive mythologies” which were adopted by radical left-wing groups in western Europe like RAF, which philosophies I find superficial as they are deadly.

As people here are not very keen on following links, I insert the part of your very interesting post dealing with Tepepa.

@titoli

Solinas admitted that he was not happy with the changes made to his script.

What do you know about this?