I finally got to see Cesare Canevari's MATALO! (1971), courtesy of the Wild East DVD.
This extremely stylized and deliberately weird film is often compared to Giulio Questi's DJANGO, KILL! (SE SEI VIVO SPARA). But whereas the Questi film departs considerably from standard Italian western procedure plot-wise, the story-line, as such, of MATALO! holds no surprises. (Except perhaps for the boomerangs.) Indeed, it seems to be an unofficial, perhaps unintended, remake of an earlier film. The weirdness is achieved entirely through bizarre camera movements, jerky editing and subliminal interpolation of frames, and utterly peculiar music. The music may be the best part; it is an unsettling mixture of psychedelic rock guitars and musique concrte. I am not sure this is a good film, but it is certainly an interesting experiment. And it contains a very surrealistic scene of a man being trampled by a horse that has to be seen to be believed.
The Wild East disc also contains an amusing interview with a somewhat incoherent Lou Castel, a staple of odd Italian cinema of the period. I would be willing to buy a Lou Castel box set if it had ORGASMO in it, and his own audio commentaries.
This extremely stylized and deliberately weird film is often compared to Giulio Questi's DJANGO, KILL! (SE SEI VIVO SPARA). But whereas the Questi film departs considerably from standard Italian western procedure plot-wise, the story-line, as such, of MATALO! holds no surprises. (Except perhaps for the boomerangs.) Indeed, it seems to be an unofficial, perhaps unintended, remake of an earlier film. The weirdness is achieved entirely through bizarre camera movements, jerky editing and subliminal interpolation of frames, and utterly peculiar music. The music may be the best part; it is an unsettling mixture of psychedelic rock guitars and musique concrte. I am not sure this is a good film, but it is certainly an interesting experiment. And it contains a very surrealistic scene of a man being trampled by a horse that has to be seen to be believed.
The Wild East disc also contains an amusing interview with a somewhat incoherent Lou Castel, a staple of odd Italian cinema of the period. I would be willing to buy a Lou Castel box set if it had ORGASMO in it, and his own audio commentaries.
