Forbidden Planet & The Dollars Trilogy | Weekly Recap 2

Merry Christmas and welcome back to Amaurea’s Weekly Recap! This week we began with quite the treat, rewatching Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West. These Spaghetti Westerns from the 60s are quite possibly the best examples of the genre, showcasing a bountiful sense of freedom in beautiful wide shots of arid landscapes, before sculpting humanity in all its dirt through sweaty close-ups. Morricone’s music makes every painting leap with ecstasy, with Clint Eastwood’s suave persona making every moment enjoyable. However, Leone’s films do start a little rough around the edges, especially in terms of writing, as the dialogue leaves much to be desired and the bad dubbing exacerbate the shoddy acting. Nevertheless, his craft only improves with each subsequent film, leading to climaxes of pure carthasis, where the intertwining of cinematography and music achieve a status of raw, emotional power in the atmospheric build up to their final shoot-outs.

A Fistful of Dollars: https://boxd.it/1wCaPv ⭐⭐⭐⭐
For a Few Dollars More: https://boxd.it/1wKGFD ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: https://boxd.it/1wSpDr ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Once Upon a Time in the West: https://boxd.it/1x1Aft ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Next up is in fact our very first Werner Herzog film. Aguirre, the Wrath of God appears to be fairly similar to the likes of Apocalypse Now, transposing Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to the Amazon as they sail down its river in search of the mythical El Dorado. This is certainly an interesting dissection of human greed and ambition, though we weren’t all that impressed by its presentation. We certainly weren’t expecting a comedy – as dark as the humour might be – which at least made the weak pacing and unengaging story somewhat funny. Herzog does attempt to say a lot through subtle techniques, so we understand why this might be so admired by many art house enthusiasts, but we simply did not connect with the film all that well.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God: https://boxd.it/1x9dp7 ⭐⭐⭐

Now for a film that we genuinely can’t account for any degree of praise, The War of the Worlds of 1953 is an absolute disaster of a screenplay. So bad that it actually lends itself to a fair amount of enjoyment if one views it through an ironic lense. The writing is pitifully atrocious, yet the special effects are frustratingly brilliant, bringing to life alien technology to slaughter human civilization with impressive sophistication for a film of that age. The cinematography is otherwise fairly bland – and the performances couldn’t be any worse – so this is not a film that does H. G. Wells’s classic book justice at all.

The War of the Worlds: https://boxd.it/1xlnpF ⭐⭐

Finishing off the weak is another iconic sci-fi film from the 50s, only this time we definitely enjoyed it. Forbidden Planet is still let down by weak writing and questionable performances, but at the very least it attempts to engage with the genre with immense creativity and passion. The dialogue is certainly not its strongest point – which does unfortunately create for a difficult viewing experience – yet the plot is crafted with several layers that feed into each other to make for a fascinating exploration of the dangers of power, technology and genius. And of course, the special effects are even better here than The War of the Worlds, creating an entirely alien world that leads into entirely alien technology built to an immense, sublime scale.

Forbidden Planet: https://boxd.it/1xyurf ⭐⭐⭐⭐