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For those who have ever heard of the Italian low-budget B movie producers ‘learning’ about copyright and trademark laws, it should not come as an utter shock that there came to be a few sequels of Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 gothic western, Django. But even I was surprised that the number of sequels, unofficial follow-ups, and various other unrelated films that only vaguely have a character called Django came to over thirty.
But that is not to say that all of them don’t care about nonsense concepts or purely soul-less adaptations – for instance, there is Giulio Questi’s 1967 Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot tries to keep the dark spirit of the original story in order to try and be an entertaining brutal, gory mockery while still managing to have amazing gun fighting over what it lacks in authenticity.
A man simply called the Stranger, who is half-Mexican in origin, gets his revenge after being rescued by a couple of Native American medicine men following his escape from a shallow mass grave. The Stranger was part of a group of outlaws who were involved in a vicious ambush of the US Army. In the process of attempting to steal bags of powdered gold from a Wells Fargo-covered wagon, gang leader Oaks shoots the Stranger and his Mexican counterparts and decides to never share the gold with them. The gang are then forced to remove their horses. A flashback reveals how the entire scenario unfolded.
After burying their victims, the survivors of the gang looking for transport, go through a town with two names “The Field Of Anguish” or “The Unhappy Place” and I imagine you won’t want to visit this town.
This is the same town that the Stranger was planning to visit as well, going after them with his friends. Both of us know the former plan means melting the loot down into golden bullets to help with revenge. But the town isn’t all that bad because when we first enter, it is a treat to witness someone’s old gang get lynched by the unusual and ironic members of this place. Bill Templar, the saloon owner, and Pastor Alderman are in charge of the havoc.
But from here, things become progressively weird because the Stranger starts to realize that ‘The Unhappy Place’ has the same kind of sadistic mysteries lying underneath it as Twin fricking Peaks, while the shaky truce that has been established between Templar, Alderman, and Sorrow breaks down, a strange rancher who has a strange little army of guns for hire to do his bidding because each of them wants to get their hands on the gold.
Django Kill has a lot to offer, and even in the 1960s, it was filled with anti-social themes. The unfortunate narratives present in the story are also what makes it aesthetic distinct from other Westerns. The strangers’ dreams brutally tear through one’s psyche, while also exploring a town deep-rooted in bitterness and cruelty. The imagery presented in the movie resembles the horror-based illustrations in the Giallo genre of Italy. Oaks succumb to his wounds after being critically wounded by the stranger’s bling-tinged duplicate, and the people in attendance uncontrollably start to rip at his bullet wounds, greedily trying to get the wealth. At the same time, Flory, who is Templar’s mistress, finds the brutal greed strangely appealing and becomes oddly aroused by the violence.
Over there, the self-righteous Alderman is also plotting and scheming while his wife sits in some sort of upstairs cell, a room she’s been sentenced to, and goes insane due to years of gaslighting and views this dump of a town through the iron bars on the window. Unfortunately, these poor exhibits of humanity do not even come close to the overly abusive attitude of the aptly named Mr. Sorrow. Essentially what you will get if Sergio Leone decides to cast a raving Nathan Lane to portray a Bond villain, Sorrow is both interesting and sickening exhibiting the style of the character. While I don’t blame him for wanting to hide the flamboyant sadism that he and his amusingly uniformed men embody, it is the business of a truly masculine man.
It’s probably shocking for some and may even shock some naive viewers because of its unapologetic depictions of animal cruelty, sexual preference, mental disorders, racism, or even male assault. Now, the contrast is extremely straight forward, it’s a Django movie a film that is by default violent and shocking. In actuality, it’s pre-Lynchian packaging often leaks because it firmly beds itself into the conventional Western and takes a classic, unforgettable journey through the world of horror. It then transforms almost entirely into an art house film, appearing halfway from the other side of the genre as it pours on the stunning skeleton imagery beginning with the first image. The lone hand of the Stranger rose from the shallow grave. It becomes progressively bizarre from that point forward. From Oaks’ absurdly karmic death, where people literally extract gold from his wounds to the tragic visualization of a Native American being scalped, to the melodramatic demise of a character who is ready to attack his way through flaming gold in order to save it but instead, it pours on him. The reality here is, it’s not just the gut-wrenching violence that is memorable, definitely not.
Take Mr. Sorrow’s truly bizarre method of torture to communicate with the Stranger who watches him crucified on a cross and viciously assaulted by iguanas and bats (granted, they are fruit bats, but it’s not that important). Why exactly Questi decided to include such a stark biblical reference in this part of the scene is beyond me (considering I’m not a therapist), although it sure is fascinating.
All through it, Tomas Milian’s doe-eyed protagonist sleepwalks through the ridiculous madness with a sense of glassy detachment, achieving even further the feeling that we are on a mind-bending roller coaster that has no ending, thus making it one of the best Django “sequels” to be produced during the frenzied goldrush after the original.
Deliberately sacrificing cohesion and sanity for a dreamy quality that wallows in cruel insanity like a pig in feces, Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! is certainly an exceptional addition to the harrowing westerns the original movie spawned in its wake regardless of the fact that just reading the title gives a tremor.
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