What happens when you stumble upon some 5000 graves in a place which has been forgotten by the creator, and as the creator himself is not around anymore?
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You dig them in curiosity and find that
not a single grave has a body interred into? You think the plot is thickening?
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To know answers to these questions we
need to go to Almeria, Arlanza valley and Burgos etc., in Spain or watch the
docu-film ‘Sad Hill Unearthed (2017)’ on Netflix. If you have decided to watch
the film you need not waste your time in reading this blog any further.
Well, we Indians know what it is all
about film ‘Hero’ worshipping. We have cases where temples have been built for
the actors in India and people have mass prayers conducted when one of their
favourites is sick or on death-bed. You think such acts are bizarre? Then you
don’t know even half the story!
Trust me; sometimes the westerners, in
their own way, also worship the ground the film stars walk. This is one such
interesting story. If you are interested, I welcome you to join me in
unravelling this interesting saga.
During the early 1960s the Italians
wanted to create western (cowboy oriented etc.) films in Europe, which, over a
period, came to be known as spaghetti westerns that bred stars like Clint
Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Franco Nero, Lee Van Cleef, et al. There have been such
good and entertaining action films like the Companeros, Django, the Dollar
Trilogy {A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)}. Among these, by far, the film ‘The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly’ attained a cult level.
As per ScreenRant (https://screenrant.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-ten-things-still-hold-up-today/amp/) 10 things that
still hold up today about ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ are;
1. Clint Eastwood’s ice-cool turn
as ‘The Man with No Name’ (“The Good”)
2. The perfectly edited finale
3. Tonino Delli Colli’s breathtaking
widescreen cinematography
4. The scope of ‘The Civil War
Battle’
5. Eli Wallach’s endearing performance
as Tuco (“The Ugly”)
6. The satirically exaggerated violence
7. Telling a simple story ‘On An
Epic Scale’
8. Lee Van Cleef’s menacing performance
as ‘Angel Eyes’ (“The Bad”)
9. Ennio Morricone’s operatic score
10. The trio’s introductions
However, though ‘The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly’ might be seen as a Clint Eastwood’s film, in my opinion, it was
clearly Eli Wallach’s and Ennio Morricone’s! In fact, at the time, Ennio
Morricone’s score was considered as the second best music score in the world in
a hundred years of cinema. No wonder, the title score is a hot favourite, even
today, across the world.
These films also brought out hidden
talents and there have been some very well known film directors too. One among
them who became a film giant of the times was Sergio Leone (1929-1989)!
It appears that Sergio Leone spent a lot
of time, money and energy in creating the venue for the climax and it is
believed that a small or large part of the Spanish Army also might have
participated in the shoot.
Sometime during the year, around
September or about two months after the film shoot completed, another part of the
Spanish Army unearthed a huge graveyard in Mirandilla Valley, Burgos, Spain.
That cemetery had over 5,000 graves ...with crosses even, but no one buried in
them. They also could find many a building that included trenches, dugout mini
canyons, tented city, concentration camps etc.
The place lay forgotten for almost half
a century buried under some seven inches of dirt and soil, till, as Netflix
announces, “an eclectic group of fans of 1966’s ‘The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly’ attempted to restore the cemetery set in Spain where the movie’s climax
was filmed”. The Fans grouped themselves as ‘Sad Hill Cultural Association’.
The Association, comprising of fans
mostly from Spain, raised funds among themselves and also apparently via crowd-funding
resources too. The members went to the spot, cleaned ‘the cemetery’ and restored
the surroundings. And on the ‘D-Day’ they wore Special T Shirts and some even
wore Ponchos like Clint did in the movie and took photographs! A dramatic group,
from among the members, replayed the climax of show down between the three main
characters. Then they had watched a special show of the movie that they
arranged at ‘the cemetery’ and tried to live a day, the days of ‘The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly’.
Well, what a way to pay a tribute and
an ode to not only the film and the entire crew of the original film, but also
to the location of the epic climax scene!?
As the film director Alex DE La Iglesia
said,
“Cinema takes you to
impossible places Cinema
means being in places you could never be in real life!”
But the efforts of this group proved
that, what has been created and forgotten can be recreated not just for the
sake of nostalgia alone, but also as reverence to the art and the artistes.
Well, you can’t agree more! Do you? Do
write to me, please!
Until the next,
Krutagjnatalu
(Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam),
Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad
(Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian),
Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic
and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai
Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat
sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan),
Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea),
Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)
Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy
Chennai, India
