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Film: Faccia a Faccia
Year of production: 1967
UK Release date: 20th June 2011
Distributor: Eureka
Certificate: 12
Running time: 107 mins
Director: Sergio Sollima
Starring: Tomas Milian, Gian Maria Volonté, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo
Genre: Action/Adventure/Western
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Spain/Italy
Language: Italian/Spanish
Review by: Daryl Wing
His films never received the acclaim that two of his contemporaries, Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, rightfully earned, but Italian auteur Sergio Sollima’s movies still deserve a wider audience. Faccia a Faccia (Face To Face), the second of his three westerns, speedily sandwiched between 1966 and 1968, is considered one of his best, and the gang-busting, gun-toting actioner is finally released in the United Kingdom.
Upstanding history professor Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonte) is reluctantly forced into retirement by his poor health and decides to move west for the warmer climate.
Almost as soon as he arrives, however, he is taken hostage by famed bandit Solomon Bennett (Tomas Milian), who needs to escape the attentions of the local sheriff. By necessity Fletcher is forced to take up with his cohorts as they try to reunite the Wild Gang.
But the educated man's growing identification with the gang encourages him to stage a takeover from Bennett, and a crueler system of leadership is put into place just as Pinkerton Charley Siringo’s (William Berger) plans to rid Purgatory City of the gang appear to be succeeding…
If you don’t fight, you fail, and Brad Fletcher certainly isn’t the failing kind. On his death bed at the start of the film, along with Bennett who was shot in its opening exchanges, his transformation from teacher to tormentor is slick and convincing, even if the whereabouts of his illness gets lost in the baron landscapes of this intriguing western. His line, “you couldn’t have chosen a worse hostage, let’s just say I’m dying” to Bennett is slightly perplexing, at first, but in time it’s clear that only his lust for life is fading fast.
Any quibbles about his desire to help Bennett instead of running are quickly brushed aside by both the beautiful visuals and, most importantly, the talented personalities along the way, ranging from Berger’s clever turn as Charley Siringo, who convinces his nemesis to reunite the Wild Gang in order to rid them from the fantastically named Purgatory City once and for all; a beautiful woman called Maria (Jolanda Modio), who questionably falls for Fletcher after being beaten and raped by him; to Rusty Rogers (Francisco Sanz), an all too brief but welcome comedic turn as an elderly man clinging on to his pointless existence by insisting he is still a wanted man even after thirty years in the wilderness.
Sollima isn’t afraid to pepper the screen with unsettling imagery, as a rabbit is shot, women are treated as punch bags then raped, families are massacred (including a frighteningly fantastic shot of the vigilantes appearing over the sand dunes) and a child is silenced by a bullet for daring to tell the Sheriff about the bank raid as he sits snoozing in the sizzling sun. The resulting shoot-out is easily the best moment from the film, as the perfectly planned heist is turned on its head in bloody, exhilarating fashion.
It’s here Sollima ups the ante plot-wise, too, discarding of most of the Wild Bunch in order to concentrate on Fletcher’s creepy transformation, and Bennett’s disapproval of such, despite being solely responsible for turning the man into a monster. Fletcher, described early on as “from up North, he reads a lot of books,” and who at the midway point tries to guilt-trip the gang from stealing money from a mail coach by reading the accompanying letter, begins his slippery slope when he falls for the beautiful Maria. An excellent standoff against the lightning-quick gunslinger Bennett whets his appetite further, but it’s only when he realises what an intelligent man can do in a town like Purgatory that he truly discovers his lust for life again – a fascinating journey mapped out in jaw-dropping style.
Faccia a Faccia also has its problems, though. The search for final gang member Zachary is a little too long, and then brushed under the carpet, as the audience aren’t given enough time to bond with him, which is a disaster when Sollima decides it will be him who turns traitor and leads the vigilantes in the film’s finale. How Bennett gets to his comrades before the marauding mob is even less believable, whether he knows the dessert inside out or not, and his escape from jail, lazily, is never even explained. The final showdown also raises eyebrows, not because the odds of fifty being defeated by two mercenaries need to be shortened, or because Bennett remembers how bad to the bone he actually is, but because Pinkerton Siringo baffles us with another change of heart that sits as out of place as Fletcher’s mutation into a sex-starved rapist.
An effective combination of genuine thrills, traditional storytelling, lush imagery and an outstanding naturalistic performance from its lead helps make Faccia a Faccia a fun, likeable western. Despite its flaws, this film has been imitated by many but bettered by few. DW
Film: Revolver
Running time: 111 mins
Director: Sergio Sollima
Starring: Oliver Reed, Fabio Testi, Paola Pitagora, Agostina Belli, Frédéric de Pasquale
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Country: Italy/France/West Germany
Region 1 release.
A labyrinth of gritty intrigue, Sergio Sollima’s Euro crime opus Revolver is an often beguiling synergy of tough-guy tropes. Italian genre star Fabio Testi is paired with British icon Oliver Reed in this pessimistic ‘70s thriller which imbues the form with a characteristically Italian élan. Loyalties are tested and torn out on the mean streets, where the last and loudest word is a silenced bullet – but will our heroes live long enough to find out why?
An elegiac prologue sees thief Milo (Italian hunk Testi) tenderly burying his mortally wounded accomplice, as Ennio Morricone’s lugubrious title theme heralds the dawn. Anticipation of a doomed underworld bromance is punctured by the next scene, however, which ditches sentiment for calculating brutality. A politician is brutally slain in a choreographed daylight hit; a genre shift that dumps us on the shadowy, blood-stained boulevards of the political thriller. The last part of this head-scratching triptych unfolds when Oliver Reed’s bad-ass prison governor, Vito, returns home to find his wife missing – and a mysterious voice on the end of the phone demanding the release of Milo (now ensconced in Vito’s gaol) – or else.
Reluctantly going rogue, cop springs criminal, intent on apprehending the blackmailers. But events spiral out of control in a way neither man could have foreseen – and they must forge an uneasy alliance to untangle a murderous conspiracy which threatens to devour them both . . .
An oblique and unusual entry in the early-70s Italian poliziotteschi (crime thriller) cycle, Revolver (1973) is an intriguing melange of classic crime motifs, enlivened by some good ol’ fashioned buddy/baddy bonding, and a malign helter-skelter of plot twists. Whilst it lacks the relentless action and explosive denouement many fans may demand, this stylish, thoughtful work crafts empathetic characters and culminates in a resonant payoff far more effective than the dispatch Godfather: roll credits approach typified by much of the competition. And! It also includes a cameo role by an Italian pop icon wielding surely the most outrageously virile moniker in cop movie history: Daniel Beretta!
Oliver Reed’s alternately anguished/brutal performance here recalls a similar role in the superb and little heralded British thriller Sitting Target. A bullish, imposing physical presence and quasi-fascistic approach to law enforcement (and his frequent threats to “rip your f**kin’ guts out!”) are tempered by moments of pained introversion and – in a harrowing climax – moral turbulence, as Ollie’s true creed is revealed. There’s certainly a lot more going on here than a gratuitous Dirty Harry facsimile, though Reed’s interrogation techniques seem to frequently result in his charges “falling down the stairs.” Sollima competently moulds (or should that be restrains?) this exuberant lead performance, pulling off a dexterous balancing act which ensures the relationship between his two stars remains at the core of the movie – even when the complexities of the plot become near baffling.
Sollima’s rich script explores reversals of status between his leads, a classic theme which bears similarities to his earlier spaghetti westerns, which use mis-matched doubles to explore the complexities of human ‘nature’. In The Big Gundown and Face To Face, the anticipated moral polarities of ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ are undermined. Here, the criminal gains tragic nobility, whilst our hero is ultimately rendered impotent through chilling pragmatism. Reed is even lobbed into jail at one point; his raving accusations blithely dismissed by the authorities. At the outset of the film, Reed coldly subdues a ‘crazy’ inmate, and it’s a frighteningly effective parallel – ‘sanity’ is clearly arbitrated by those in power. And who’s to watch those watchmen?
Us. But are you going to stand up and be counted? Revolver scathingly depicts murder as a tool of authority, a bureaucratic adjustment: a blameless act of self-defence. As a cog in the almighty System, it’s this profound realisation – the crumbling edifice he’s shoring up is a murderous sham – that gives Vito’s character another degree of pathos, as his hubristic righteousness implodes. It’s where he ultimately stands – in what is revealed as practically a neo-fascist state – that precipitates the ultimate moral dilemma of the film, and also provides an unexpectedly sombre slant to proceedings
Morricone’s sumptuous score also deserves plaudits. Married to image, it proves irresistibly moving. The mournful central theme potently amplifies the downbeat mood, and other incidentals deftly shift in tone and style to counterpoint action and intrigue. Where necessary, the sonic aesthetics get innovatively down and dirty, unleashing discordant, oscillating eddies of music concrete and lacerating riffs of fuzz guitar. Revolver offers excellent examples of the composer’s dynamic scoring of (to paraphrase the title of a fine compilation) crime with dissonance.
The film does include a few forgivable inconsistencies, however. Reed’s peculiar dub is perhaps the most glaring. Voicing the role with an American accent that seems dramatically inexplicable: this seems motivated purely by commercial considerations. Another glaring incongruity is the actual weapon brandished by Vito throughout the movie. A stylish silhouette of this is prominent in the trailer, and it’s, well, a magazine loaded piece: certainly not the firearm one might expect, given context. What gives? Did someone consider ‘pistol’ to be a less enticingly exploitative title? Well, this relates to a key line of dialogue in the film; one which candidly underlines its savage expose of realpolitik: “Society has many ways of protecting itself. Red tape…prison bars…and the revolver.”
Low expectations of cops, robbers and a de rigeur chase scene with Fiats were rewardingly surpassed by this spaghetti flavoured shoot ‘em up. In its good ol’ fashioned emphasis on human drama, coupled with bracingly gloomy cynicism, Revolver is an ambitious and gripping film that ultimately transcends the clichés of its genre. If you enjoy stylish, intriguing fare such as The Conformist and Investigation Of A Citizen Under Suspicion, but prefer a little more pulp in your fiction, you’ll dig this! DJO
