Sam Stevens

It’s been a while since I watched a Werner Herzog film, he’s got such an incredible talent at creating breathtaking but extremely raw cinema. His filmmaking is so austere yet full of so much emotion, most of that emotion is down to the absolutely wild Klaus Klinski, who’s very famous for exploding on set, he’s such a insane human and he feels almost opposite to Herzog’s controlled and very wise temperament. The camera-work within this film was beautiful, Herzog’s portrayal of Ghana is gorgeous, it shimmers like some sort of gemstone. The story is pretty decent, it follows a rogue bandit played by Klinski who is hired to negotiate a new slave trade route with a powerful African tribal leader, once he arrives he begins to start a powerful movement against the king, training an army of female natives to fight with him. Some of the training sequences are so immense and just fantastically captured, with Klinski at the heart of it all it just feels so alive.

What a ridiculous cast, Charles Bronson, Alain Delon, Toshiro Mifune and Ursula Andress (who was pretty crap). While their performances are definitely not their best it’s still pretty surreal seeing Toshiro Mifune talking to a cowboy Alain Delon in English, a very strange moment in cinema. This film is pretty cheesy, it’s a pretty classic basic western film with some cool samurai elements and a lovely ‘buddy’ trope going on between Bronson and Mifune. The actual story was okay, it was exciting enough but did drag at some parts, most of the film is just riding on the cool cast. I wonder what the process behind all this was, how did Alain Delon and Toshiro Mifune star in a spaghetti western together, I’m loving it.

I think this is the most beautiful film of all time, those static shots are absolutely stunning and the various techniques used are just so impressive. This film is shot in glorious 35mm film, with all the grain and dust in it’s beautiful glory, the aspect ratio is Academy ratio (1.33:1) with rounded corners to mimic the shape of a primitive wet plate used by the protagonist in this film. I think I’ve already touched on this is my past review (just about a year ago) but the inspiration for this magnificent story is so fascinating; basically a small wooden box was found on the coast of Iceland containing multiple wet plates taken by a Danish priest. Hlynur Pálmason is one of the most exciting and unique filmmakers of right now, the ambition and passion within this film is outstanding, you can really feel the love and effort put into it. It’s just a phenomenal piece of art, those static timelapses are breathtaking and every single frame of the film is something exquisite, truly a perfect film. There’s so much to talk about with this film, from the process to the creative choices. Also this is actually my first time watching the film on blu ray, I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to revisit this masterpiece but I’m so glad I did. All time favourite.

I was really craving a noir and this is exactly what I needed. I knew that when I saw the opening credits with the titles physically painted onto the sidewalk, I really appreciate a physical title card. The visuals are beautiful and very noir, a shadowy and moody atmosphere all shot on location with some simple but great compositions. The characters were very great, especially the protagonist who played wonderfully by Dana Andrews. The dialogue was very sharp, there was many fantastic uses of visual storytelling to convey suspense and tension, which there was a lot of. The story itself was very good, it stayed engaging throughout and had some really powerful moments. Overall an excellent noir, which is just what I wanted.