Film Review--Quien Sabe? (A Bullet for the General)

In the fifteen years following the international success of Sergio Leone's epics, Italian producers churned out one Western after another, of varying (often marginal) quality and success. In response to the John Ford interpretation of the American west, these films often show the individual who, for whatever selfish purpose, finds himself with a choice to aid another, even more selfish, individual (a landowner or mine baron) or aid the collective (oppressed townspeople or miners). The choice is clear in the majority of these films, but the politics are often muddy, if not entirely forgotten in lieu of the need for ticket sales.

Not so in Quien Sabe? (unfortunately titled A Bullet for the General for international release, both telegraphing the climax and undermining the ambiguousness of the situation). Here, we find American Bill Tate (Luigi Castellano) on a train with a group of Federales that is robbed by bandits for their weapons. The bandit leader, El Chuncho (played by Gian Maria Volonte of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More fame) specifically tells his troops to leave the people alone, to only get the guns. Tate joins with the bandits for unknown reasons, but demonstrates his loyalty and is embraced. The bandits sell the guns to aid the revolution and see along the way the oppression that the Mexican government, with American aid, lays on its people.

Directed by Damiano Damiani and written by Franco Solinas (who wrote both of Gillo Pontecorvo's most political films: Battle of Algiers and Burn!), this is definitely the most overtly political of any Italian Western I've seen. Damiani, in fact, would always contend that this is not a Western at all, but a political film entirely. Whatever, it's a Western. No matter, the struggle of the oppressed has never been more clearly represented, at least in a genre film, and its influence is clear in the revisionist Westerns of Sam Peckinpah a few years later. Living outside the law allows the bandits the freedom to galvanize the townspeople and organize them into their own collective. The bandits gain nothing financially from this, only the hope for a better life for all of Mexico. The closing moments of the film and El Chuncho's final statement drive the point home and gives the sense that these statements were not for those on screen, but those in the audience.

Cinematically, Quien Sabe? is at the upper eschelon of the genre and, if it doesn't break new ground, it represents the work of a skilled craftsman. The music by Luis Baclov is derivative of Morricone's Western scores (Morricone was the musical supervisor, and the producers agenda is clear). It isn't necessarily bad, but they'd have done a lot better by just using the Maestro himself. As a whole, the film has a lot more to offer than just the usual trappings of the genre, and, through quality writing, fine direction, and better than average perfomances, is highly recommended.