Spanakopita Western
Starting with the Greeks, Westerns make waves overseas.
By: Henry Cabot Beck 04/01/2007
One final note. The film features Eddy Mitchell, who started out in the French rock ‘n’ roll band Les Chaussettes Noires (The Black Socks) and had a great pompadour. He has a role in Big City, which makes him either the drunk or the weak one. Hard to tell at this point. Mitchell toured a lot in the 1960s, and Jimmy Page used to show up in his pickup band when he was playing London. He started acting in 1981, and hosted a TV series from 1982-98, La dernière séance (roughly, The Search for the Ghost in the Rear).
Tears of the Black Tiger
No movie in recent memory has caused more head scratching and creative analysis in the critical community than the thoroughly strange Thai Western, Tears of the Black Tiger, made in 2000 but released by Magnolia Pictures here in January.
There are good reasons for this—it’s not so much that it doesn’t fit into a specific genre, but that it fits into so many genres that it creates a new category altogether. Also, by western, i.e. non-Asian, standards, the movie seems delirious, some kind of fever dream—is it avant garde, is it serious, is it camp? Are we laughing with the movie or at it?
The crux of it is, the movie is completely derivative and wholly original. It is at once funny, sad, bizarre and extremely violent—whether it’s entertaining or not depends entirely on what one brings to it.
As for it being a Western, the film features traditional touchstones: cowboy clothing, gun duels, horses, raids, outlaw camps—the whole shebang. Locking the picture into an era, though, is not quite so easy to do.
Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), the Black Tiger, is carrying a one-for-my-baby torch that won’t be drowned. His unattainable sweetie since childhood, Rumpooey (Stella Malucchi), wanders through the picture with one of those pained 1950s Lana Turner faces. She is likewise tortured by her love for Dum. That’s the melodrama part, which is explained through a series of dovetailed flashbacks.
And then there’s Mahasuan (Supakorn Kitsuwon), Dum’s fellow outlaw, who early on challenges Dum to a gunfight. His way of goading Dum into battle is by throwing Dum’s harmonica on the ground.
In a day-glo set left over from some Turkish rip of The Wizard of Oz, the two square off. With speed that would put the silliest Terence Hill gunslinger to shame, Dum chooses to kill the snake in the tree above Mahasuan, which prompts his challenger to swear eternal loyalty. They share shots of blood-infused liquor and drunkenly dance in a Buddhist sweat lodge of some sort. They laugh. They hug. You get it.
Later, there is a huge, pitched, Wild Bunch, slo-mo battle between the Thai Federales and Dum’s gang, which actually involves the use of LAW missile launchers.
Did I mention there are also musical numbers and a score that swipes entire sections from Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks-he's most known for his work on Sergio Leone films such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—as well as a bit of Texas Swing?
There’s not much point in going on—describing this picture by director Wisit Sasanatieng is hard enough. In any case, by now you are either intrigued or completely dissuaded from seeing the movie. If you still miss Johnny Mack Brown, it might be best to avoid it.
On the other hand, anyone who cherishes the thoroughly absurd singing cowboys pictures or Johnny Guitar (1954), or Spaghetti Westerns in general, or Sonny Chiba chop socky or, say, 1970’s El Topo, might want to add this movie to their list.
Tears of the Black Tiger is still playing through April in a number of cities. Check magpictures.com for details. The DVD is available April 24.
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