Salt in the Wound (1969)

aka The Liberators

aka War Fever

Original title: Il dito nella piaga

World War II, somewhere in Italy. Lieutenant Michael Sheppard (George Hilton), freshly arrived at the front from West Point, manages to bring himself into quite a bit of trouble on his very first mission, getting the shooting squadron he commands killed by sheer obstinacy, and ending up having to team up with the two men he was supposed to have being shot – Corporal Brian Haskins (Klaus Kinski) and Private John Grayson (Ray Saunders).

After various violent misadventures the not exactly loving trio ends up “liberating” a small Italian village. Here, the cynical Haskins learns he still has love, though probably not much decency, in his heart, and Grayson finds himself protecting a little boy, while Sheppard just might learn something about the realities of the lives of people not born into the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, the soldiers’ new found self-realizations and the peaceful village life that makes them feel like human beings again might not amount to much for them in the long run, for a German combined arms unit is closing in to “liberate” the village right back.

Salt in the Wound is one of the clear highpoints in the storied career of Italian genre film director Tonino Ricci. Ricci was one of those low budget filmmakers who could turn out pretty horrible crap, but when provided with an interesting script, actors actually there to act (if only a little), and a smidgen of money, his films ended up rather interesting, or even – as in this particular case – pretty damn great. Ricci, going by the resulting films, was putting as much visible effort into his films as the budgets allowed, with many a beautiful shot of unbeautiful things, and much clever – if not exactly subtle – editing. Competence (and more) in the required action scenes is pretty much a given in this context anyway.

A large part of Salt’s effectiveness does of course rest on its acting ensemble, with fine, multi-dimensional performances by Hilton and Saunders and a Kinski palpably enjoying to be allowed to show other emotions in a genre film beyond craziness; though Klaus does of course do craziness here too, and even particularly fine. That’s probably because the film actually gives him (as well as Saunders) opportunity to show where all the violence he expresses comes from. Having said that, I suspect people not fond of the ways of Italian genre cinema will not be satisfied with even these performances, for while the film has some interesting ideas of its own, and its characters are more multi-dimensional than in a shoot ‘em up style war film, it shows these things in the most unsubtle ways possible, with many an opportunity for melodramatics for everyone involved. For me, this approach fits the themes involved well. I also don’t believe war movies are a very good place for emotional subtlety (not to be confused with psychological subtlety), with melodrama’s heightened emotional states rather more fitting to the experiences the characters in these films go through.

Watching Salt, I found particularly impressive how little this film with a traditional “redemption through violence” plot actually believes in violence as being redemptive, eschewing that idea not only in the final scene when the film’s last survivor of our protagonists puts his new medal unto the grave of an unknown soldier (who just might have been one of our other protagonists). For a film of its style, Salt seems honestly and deeply bothered by the cost of violence, not just as a melodramatic gesture but at its actual emotional core. It is hardly a sign one can misinterpret that the film’s most directly redemptive moment for any of its characters is when Saunders breathes life back into a little boy, a thing that – in a film from a very Catholic country that starts quoting from the bible and sees Saunders character struggling with the difference between his religious belief and the way the world is – is hardly an accident, and is pretty much the opposite of redemption through violence.

It’s also rather uncommon in the genre to not just show bad men (or rather “bad men”) redeem themselves in dubious manner, but for a film in it to actually show why these men probably weren’t quite right even before the war began. Again, it’s all very melodramatically realized, but it’s also effective and thoughtful.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,reviews,tonino ricci,george hilton,klaus kinski,ray saunders,betsy bell,war

In short: Thor the Conqueror (1983)

Barbarian archer and bad guy Gnut (Raf Baldassarre) murders the father of the freshly born Thor. Shaman Etna (Luigi Mezzanotte) escapes with the baby and raises him like his own son. Or so he says, for curiously, grown-up Thor (Bruno Minniti) doesn't know what a woman is, will only feed his foster father with fish heads, only talks in sentence fragments, and talks of himself exclusively in the third person, pretty much like the Hulk. I don't think Etna's a very good father.

After Thor has killed his first man and slept with his first woman (helpful hints by dad: women are stupid, don't be too soft with them, women are meant to serve men), Etna sends him out to invent agriculture, take vengeance on Gnut, and become the greatest chieftain ever. On his way, Thor rapes an amazon (Maria Romano) who of course falls in love with him (the sound you now hear is me vomiting), and has various cheap adventures.

I honestly think Tonino Ricci's low-rent sword and sorcery movie was at one point in its existence meant to be something rather cool - an attempt to use the sword and sorcery genre to tell a kind of origin myth that explains where agriculture and horses came from and how the world works, the sort of tale one imagines some fantasy world barbarians would tell their children.

Alas, between that basic idea and its actual execution sits quite a gulf, or a wall made out of a non-existent budget, for Thor looks so impoverished even the Deathstalker films seem lavish in comparison. There are basically no sets, just one very European looking wood, a cave, and some fur tents. The soundtrack consists of ill-fitting orchestra library music that makes the movie feel even cheaper. Camera set-ups are primitive and somewhat boring, and what special effects there are, are unsurprisingly bad.

Its immense misogyny (the film actually seems to mean that crap about woman's subservience to man), and the outright assholish-ness of its hero were no help in improving my opinion of the film, yet still I found myself watching it with a degree of tolerance and slight amusement.

It was probably the wackiness of some of Thor's ideas that did the trick: Etna's tendency to follow Thor around in owl form to sprout unasked for exposition into the camera, the shaman's obvious relish in secretly watching his foster son having sex (though I suspect there's no need for secrecy and Thor would just grunt and say "Thor say watch" if asked), snake poison as the cure for blindness, the fact that the first horse was beamed into this world by Thor's god for our hero to frighten his enemies with. There's just a whole bunch of vaguely bemusing and highly amusing crap here that makes it difficult to condemn Thor completely, as much as I would like to.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,in short,sword and sorcery,tonino ricci,bruno minniti,maria romano,raf baldassarre

Raiders of the Magic Ivory (1989)

Vietnam-vets-turned-mercenaries Sugar (James Mitchum, looking in his paunch-fitting fishing vest like the typical shotgun-wielding tourist) and Mark (Chris Ahrens, looking so unremarkable that I couldn't tell you how he looks five minutes after watching the film) are hired by a certain Li Cheng to retrieve an ivory tablet (that won't look like ivory, but rather like plastic it is) from a temple (or, as we call it, cave) in a part of the jungle on the Vietnamese-Cambodian jungle. I don't think it's cause for alarm that it's called "The Hell From Which No One Returns". But the mission is a little more difficult than expected. Firstly, there is the local military who don't like heavily armed Americans in their jungle, but have never heard much about the concept of "taking cover", so that works out just fine for our heroes. Secondly, there is the group of black magician monks and their white-bearded leader guarding the tablet. These guys not only look swell in their sacks and the white painted Halloween gorilla masks, they are also slightly more difficult to kill thanks to their tendency to get up again...and again...and again...and again. White-beard also has some tricks up his sleeve, like waving his arms menacingly, teleporting to safety and superimposing flying Halloween devil masks on the picture that...do nothing (or to quote our heroes: "Some kind of bullshit man, come on." - "Yeah.").

But even when Sugar and Mark have reached their goal, there might be a little surprise waiting for them. Is someone here who likes to bet if Li Cheng betrays them to use the ivory tablet to RULE THE WORLD?

First things first: Raiders of the Magic Ivory is a pretty bad movie. It also is a damn entertaining one. It's what happens when you give a filmmaker like Tonino Ricci fivethousand dollar, fly him (not first class, of course) and the handful of people this sum can buy out into a jungle somewhere and wait what he'll do. After cursing quite a bit, he'll grab a scrip out of Dardano Sacchetti's trash (no, I don't know why Sacchetti's trash lies around in the jungle; just roll with me here), add a "hell", "shit" or "bastard" to every line of dialogue and just film the damn thing. Fortunately for us, everyone else will be very amused by Ricci's moment of cursing ecstasy and try to do him one better by trotting through the film with facial expressions that tell us that even James Mitchum can find things that are way too silly to not move a muscle.

One would think that a few stupidly silly ideas, lots of green, a few firefights mostly consisting of faceless and nameless henchmen lining up to be shot, bemused acting and lots and lots of curses aren't enough to keep one awake for ninety minutes. One would be underestimating the entertainment value of real undiluted Z-filmmaking quite a lot.

And just wait for the moment when James "Sugar" Mitchum is declared "Sacred Keeper of the Celestial Peace"! I mean, it's not completely wrong. It will be very peaceful after he has killed everyone, but what's with the cursing?

 

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