Hemantha Kalam - 99 " The Happy Story of 'Sad Hill' "

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