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As much
a morality tale as well as a Western, Clint Eastwood continues Sergio Leone's legacy and crafts his own spaghetti Western
and twists the genre. No longer is the West a fanciful land of freedom and cowboys (other films, including one's made by Eastwood,
twist the genre as well) but a dark and cruel place. The good people can be the villain, and the villains can be the heroes.
Eastwood himself is brilliant as the Stranger in Lago (a tribute to Leone's Man with No Name) and is the perfect anti-hero.
He is vile and immoral, yet he is not a bad man per se, that is, he is not the bad guy of the film (that role belongs to the
outlaws who ride into town at the end). The Stranger even saves the town and its people that he hates so much from the outlaws
at the end in a twisted sort of heroic act. It is impossible to cheer for the man, yet we are fascinated by him and are curiously
drawn to him. He is strangely attractive and we wonder why he came to Lago and where he came from. The other characters are
not quite as intriguing yet they are likable enough (such as Mordicai and the old sheriff). The film is beautifully shot,
with wide open scenes of the desert and the town. Eastwood masters the scenery beautifully and we get a sense of desolation
and emptiness of the town and surrounding land. Perhaps this is connected to the Stranger, as he is devoid of emotion and
feeling and seems like an empty shell simply doing his dirty work in town. The pace of the film is a little slow, yet it held
my attention from beginning to end (the eerie musical score did well to establish the mood of the film at the beginning).
The film is about revenge, purely and simply. Yet we never know why the Stranger would want to revenge the murder of the town's
previous sheriff. The story plays out like a Gothic novel. The story is simple yet complex and the end (and the film itself)
is open to interpretation. The story is haunting and like an Edgar Allen Poe narrative bizarre and open to interpretation.
We're not supposed to know the exact truth. The film is a puzzle which we will never figure out, and even if we do we will
never know for sure if we are right. We never truly know the Stranger's name or who he is. He is either an avenging angel
or the ghost of the murdered sheriff (among other things) . The man has come to punish the town for its wrongdoing at any
rate and he does so in his own sick and twisted way, such as painting the town red and renaming it 'Hell' and welcoming the
outlaws into town to do what they will to the people. It is clear that the Stranger is not the devil, or else he would not
care to save the people from the outlaws, nor do I believe he would have even come to Lago to avenge a murder if he were.
The comment by the man that Mordicai does know his name, the dreams of the murder of the sheriff that he has, and the way
he materializes out of the desert and melts back into it after he has sought revenge all point to the Stranger as being the
sheriff's ghost back to haunt the town (note also that he only leaves after Mordicai posts a tombstone at the sheriff's grave).
But this could all be coincidence, and the desert is hazy and it could be that the man simplys disappears because of the haze.
He may not be a ghost at all. I personally am of the group that believes that the Stranger is most likely the murdered sheriff
reincarnated as the Stranger, come back to seek vengence on those who killed him. This belief is supported by the dreams
he has and the way he rides into town, completely set on what he is about to do. He knows why he is here. And you notice
how he reacts in the beginning of the film to the cracking of a whip? Whatever is true though, we are not supposed to really
know who the Stranger is. Clint Eastwood even remarked that he didn't even truly know who the man was. But the mystery of
him is part of what makes the film brilliant. We want to watch it again and again, not just because of the great acting or
the brilliant directing (watch the way the Stranger rides through the town in the beginning) but because we want to unlock
the secrets and solve the puzzle. Beautifully shot, wonderfully directed, the film is classic spaghetti Western with a dark
(albeit sick in an intriguing way) undertone, and it is a captivating and gritty tale of revenge and a warning against sinning
and hiding your sin.
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