Requiescant (1967) User Reviews

The Gunslingers control the means of Production

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 24 September 2018]

Lou is a young preacher dude, one that doesn't remember his entire family being massacred when was child, mainly due to him taking a bullet to the head. Now he's a travelling preacher with his adopted family and his quasi-sister, who stupidly runs off to join a dancing troupe. This means that Lou will have to go after her, with only a bible to begin with.

Lou quickly realizes that he's deadly shot while during a robbery in the street, he picks up a gun from a corpse and effortlessly kills two raiders with it. Lou finds out that his half-sister Princy has become a whore, and pimped by one of the guys who was present when his family where massacred, and his boss is the vampire like Mark Damon, who's character has a lot of space to move around in. This is not your usual Western, even if the basic plot is.

Franco Citti's character likes to rub a little doll on his face, Lou and Mark have a shooting contest, shooting out candle flames while drinking. Lou has to hide inside a bell while people throw bombs at him. There's also a duel where Lou and another guy stand on stools with nooses round their necks and tries to shoot the legs off the stool before the other does. Most of the actual emotional stuff comes from Mark Damon, who has trouble with his wife, gets riled at the mess caused by his men, and might even be gay.

I've read somewhere that this is some kind of communist Western, but that's up to others to figure out.

Outlandish and uneven Spaghetti Western with strange characters and unusual events

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 14 December 2016]

Offbeat Spaghetti Western with a good cast with the first two in spades , Lou Castel and Mark Damon , as well as a particular role for Pier Paolo Pasolini as Mexican guerrillero . The son of a Mexican rebel (Lou Castel) is adopted by a family headed by a preacher who travels in a wagon captioning ¨In God we trust¨ along with his wife , son and daughter but when his step-sister runs away , Requiescant sets out in rescue . Requiescant is very close to his stepsister Princy (Barbara Frey) who has fled to work as a saloon girl . One time grown-up Requiescant , searching for his adopted sister , comes upon a little town that is under the thumb of a powerful owner . Requiescant soon finders her in the employment of George Bellow Ferguson (Mark Damon) , an evil landowner who manipulates the young man for his own amusement . When his history is heritage is discovered it is revealed Ferguson was the man who ordered the death of the man's family all for the control over the land that belonged to them . Meanwhile , Requiescant aids the unappreciated although terrorized town in the process and suddenly finds his sister . Requiescant executes a single-handedly revenge , as he shoots , ravages and murders each person involved in his father's killing . He is relentless in his vendetta , deadly in his violence . Requiescant is submitted a tempestuous trap by Fergurson and is caught and he faces the vicious bandits .

It's an exciting but slow-moving western with breathtaking showdown between the protagonist Lou Castel against the heartless Mark Damon and his hoodlums , including a fine set on the Aztec temple . This ¨Requiescant¨ playing out the Spaghetti Western formula like clockwork , yet retains a moral compass often lacking in its more famous brethren . The film packs violence , gun-play, explosion , high body-count and rare happenings . This picture is defined by its heightened visual style , its brutality , and its amorality well represented on the Ferguson/Mark Damon character . Requiescant may not be the strongest story for a Western and it does tend to fluff over a few scenes . Lou Castel takes the lead role in Requiescant , Castel as merciless hero is mediocre , he plays a young man raised to be a pacifist by a travelling preacher who discovered him as a baby after a massacre of his family . Lou shoots , hits , runs and kills but also receives violent knocks , punches, kicks and wounds . In the film premiere attained little success , nowadays is best valued and I think it turns out to be a very strange Spaghetti Western . Mark Damon is terrific as a cruelly baddie role , he plays a deranged former Confederate officer who is stealing land from the Mexican people with phony land grants , he bears a hysterical and mocking aspect , an offbeat role who dresses , garments and make-up in ¨Dracula-alike¨ . Screenplay is written in leftist feeling , that's why it is included peculiar actors as Pier Paolo Pasolini and two players of his factory : Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli .

Poor production design but including an impressive Aztec temple creating an excellent scenario in which takes a place a massacre at the beginning and the ending . The musician Riz Ortalani , composes a passable soundtrack in Morricone style ; it's full of guttural sounds, and a haunting musical leitmotif. Striking , vibrant and crisp cinematography by Sandro Mancori . Interior filmed at Elios Studios Rome and outdoor sequences filmed at Italian landscapes , from El Lacio , Rome .

Carlo Lizzani's direction is regularly crafted , here he's more thought-provoking and broody and more inclined toward violence , because he's a expert on serious cinema . Although he filmed another S.W. titled -under a pseudonym named Beaver- . Lizzani was member of the P.C.I. (Communist Party) whose leftist wing tending is well shown in his flicks . He directed good films as ¨Last days of Mussolini¨, ¨Bandits in Milan¨, co-directed ¨Dirty game¨, ¨The Verona trial¨, ¨chronicle of poor lovers¨ and today he goes on directing movies until his recent death at 91 . Rating : 6 , acceptable and passable . The picture will appeal to Spaghetti Western fans.

The force of the collective

[dmgrundy · 7/10 · 17 August 2020]

'Requiescant' stands out from the Euro-western crowd for the appearance of Pier Paolo Pasolini himself, in a rare acting cameo as the Mexican priest Don Juan, who, despite his name, is less a man of the flesh than an ascetic liberation theology advocate who drifts in and out of the narrative at key points. The titular hero, played by Lou Castel, is the sole survivor of a local landowner's massacre of the peasants in the ruined chapel which serves as the film's opening and climactic acts of violence: the massacre and the act of liberation which avenges it. That structure, of a suppressed violence which the hero (and audience) slowly come to understand, in an inevitable journey of violence begetting violence, is familiar from Leone, from 'Django', from numerous other Euro-westerns of the periods. Here, though, as usual, it's framed through the figure of the lone gunfighter, it's given a greater collective dimension. Requiescant, adopted by a religious family (hence his habit of saying a prayer over those he's killed), seeks to rescue his adopted sister from the clutches of the landowner who runs the town as a connected network of vice, of semi-legitimated criminality based on exploitation and dispossession. His act of violence against the landowner and his henchmen simultaneously serves his own personal quest for revenge and the interests of the peasants led by Pasolini (which the flashback structure reveals to be connected). As in Glauber Rocha's later 'Antonio das Mortes', Lizzani suggests that the individualist gunslinger, whose skill and firepower are need in the struggle--and who remains a figure of cinematic lore and popular fantasy more than a historical figure--is also ultimately subsidiary to the force of the collective.

KILL AND PRAY (Carlo Lizzani, 1967) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 24 August 2006]

This is a renowned and undeniably interesting Spaghetti Western of the politicized variety which, however, does not make a satisfactory whole. The first half is especially uncertain: his parents having been massacred by land-grabbing Southern aristocrat Mark Damon and his cohorts, a Mexican boy (played by Lou Castel as an adult) is brought up by a family of Quakers; when their rebellious young daughter runs away, he vows to bring her back - however, not only has she been turned into a prostitute in the meantime, but he himself unwittingly disrupts a robbery and becomes a fast-draw overnight, thus making what is perhaps the subgenre's least likely gunslinger (in fact, so inadept is he that he beats his horse with a frying-pan in order to urge it forward)!!

Anaemic cape-wearing Damon (in one of his better roles) seems to have strayed in from some vampire movie, and I was expecting him to bare his fangs at any moment!; he's also something of a racist/misogynist fop with a penchant for speechifying!! There's even some Gothic-style lighting when Damon murders his Mexican wife for helping Castel; unfortunately, this scene and another (in which Castel's 'sister' falls foul of three of Damon's gunmen, one of them her keeper, in the saloon/brothel where she works) seem to have been trimmed in the version I saw (which ran for 102 minutes in PAL format against the official 110!) - for instance, Damon tells his wife just before she expires that she has died a good death but, all the time, the camera is fixed on his expression, so that we don't even know what method he used to dispose of her!!

However, REQUIESCANT (as it was originally called and which is also how Castel is referred to, since he always says prayers over the men he has just killed!) is perhaps best remembered for the presence as actor of controversial film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini (whose distinctive voice has been dubbed even in the Italian-language version)!; still, his role isn't up to much (a Mexican priest in peasant garb who turns up intermittently to spout revolutionary ideology), coming into play mainly towards the end, and could have been played by just anybody; also recruited for the film were Pasolini regulars Franco Citti as a heavy and Ninetto Davoli as a trumpeter (the scene where Pasolini and his gang do an impromptu musical number in a saloon to distract the customers' attention from Castel's 'sabotage' is unintentionally hilarious).

The film's best moments, then, are mostly concentrated in its second half: Castel's realization of who he really is when taken to the place where his people met their doom (featuring a flashback to the opening scene tinted blood-red); a contest between Castel and Damon (shooting drunkenly from a distance at a woman holding candelabras); the duel scene at the saloon, perhaps the most original I've ever watched, in which Castel and blond womanizer Ferruccio Viotti are both standing on a stool and have their heads in a noose - and the first to shoot off the foot of the stool will see the other hang!; the destruction of the abandoned fort in which Castel is presumed dead; and Damon's protracted death scene, which first sees him put out of action by Castel's gunfire and subsequently interred by a tumbling church-bell! Riz Ortolani's score is a good one, too.

Unusual spaghetti western

[Wizard-8 · 2 November 2014]

The opening scene of "Requiescant" promise that this will be a revenge spaghetti western akin to something like the Lee Van Cleef movie "Death Rides A Horse". Surprisingly, that is not what happens, at least for a long time. For the remaining first half of the movie, the movie completely forgets everything revenge-related. Eventually, the title character does remember what happened in the past and plots his revenge, but again the movie does not go quite how we predict. For one thing, there isn't a terrible amount of action on display here; only towards the end do things get gritty.

I'm not sure how to sum up this movie for potential viewers. The movie is slow and meandering, and as I said earlier, it lacks action. On the other hand, the movie is so atypical at times that it kept my interest up; there are some genuine good moments here and there. After a lot of thought, here's my summary of the movie: If you are looking for a gritty and action-packed revenge western, watch something like "Death Rides A Horse" instead. However, if you have seen more than your share of spaghetti westerns (like me), and want something a little different for variety's sake, "Requiescant" may be interesting enough for you.

Religious-themed revenge western

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 21 December 2017]

REQUIESCANT is a well-shot spaghetti western with a solid revenge plotline bolstered by some great desert photography and more suspense than most. As an Italian film, it's full of religious imagery and righteous vengeance weighs in heavy here. The unknown-to-me Lou Castel plays the sole survivor of a massacre who grows up to be a gun-toting fighter gunning for revenge. Mark Damon is cast against type as the traitorous villain of the piece while director Pier Paolo Pasolini contributes an acting role here and you wouldn't know he's not a natural. The thrills are thin on the ground, but the film builds up a sense of slow-burning justice and the ending is quite satisfying.

It's a very good film despite not being directed by Sergio Leone's

[Storywatcher · 6/10 · 9 May 2015]

Carlo Lizzani is more of a realistic director as he didn't intend to be spectacular and impressive in any of the details. Real-life facts like killing and humiliation make the work done.

The BSO is not its forte so that's why I didn't give it 10 stars but it was more centered around the story. There's too many scenes that are silent with the only sound of footsteps, horses, guns and crying -except when there's a peaceful scene where some little melody appears and in the opening and closing scenes.

The main antagonist (a lot of western-fans know him) is well developed as a character and he can be quite contradictory with morals as any politician would. There are many philosophic stuff so it's quite agreeable when giving sense to life and death and the script in general was well done. I think the script is what was best done in the whole story and I don't agree with people who think that they were silly games because I'm aware those games existed and still exist nowadays.

The photography can be quite catching to the eye but in this film is very realistic and the quality is quite ordinary. There's no "paysage scenes" (if you know what I mean in Western films) as is always centered in the people and surroundings.

Spaguetti a sub and exotic western genre!!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 9 May 2019]

I would like apologizes with Italians filmmakers and all people who really loves this exotic and unique sub genre from western, firstly for many times devalue one thing for that matter didn't understood completely, it takes so long to reach in this final point, l used to compare those spaghetti with American classic westerns, then l've realize that those classic western were a personal style introduced by American usually focused in a male hero, as Cooper, Wayne, Murphy, stewart and so on, instead the exotic sub genre created by Italian filmmaker were driven to their odd characters modeling a quant variation that established for itself ever since, in this picture we have a exactly sample whom l'm talking about, a wounded boy rescued by a preacher, when he grow up has in first meeting with a gun, his skillful wasn't explained, he uses a rope to carry the gun, the characters all around no make sense at all, the bell and all are a true elements of the this meaningful sub genre they don't need any Waynes or Coopers they are quite opposite in the whole concept, these pictures were unique, colorful unusual characters were the key's success of this kind, please my fellow friends once more my deep apologizes to my lack of experience to enjoy such delightful sub genre!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25

People Have TOTALLY Missed the Point Here

[adrianswingler · 9/10 · 9 August 2015]

This one has to take the prize for the reviews completely failing to set expectations. I really could not believe the difference. I can see why people would say the things they have...but it doesn't change the fact that they have watched this movie and not seen most of what was happening.

On pure production values and in terms of story, yes, the story is absurd, on the face of it, but so are most the stories in musicals and so are the production values of B horror movies. If anyone said that, though, you'd give them a look because everyone knows that is the case. That's not what you're watching it for. So, I can see disappointment if you're watching this as a Hollywood Western.

But Spaghetti Westerns were made by left wing radicals, this one actually has one of the leading lights of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) in it, and that is very much the focus for director Carlo Lizzani. Whereas most all of the sub-genre were Westerns with an Italian artistic slant and some radical sub-text, this one is a straight-ahead, let's give the young communistas some proper learning, Western movie style. The story is thin because it's totally unimportant. There aren't plot holes; there's a bit of hand waving to acknowledge it, much like you might add a box to a flow diagram to represent an input you're not fully diagramming. Those bits are deemed unimportant. "How does he learn to shoot?" It's not important. It's not telling a story, it's acting out critical moments in life to provoke thoughts about class struggle.

I couldn't believe how dense the political/social message was. EVERY little scene, EVERYTHING is there for symbolic value. And the story isn't that bad as I never felt it dragging. So preachy, such a thin story, it should have become tedious. It never did. I usually watch the classics in installments to get every detail, but I watched this one start to end because I couldn't stop watching it. I couldn't believe he had made such a pure vehicle for talking about class struggle, the role of violence, when should violence be used, how does doing so change the person, etc., etc., etc.

You can certainly argue that that's not a valid way to make any kind of Western. But if you like Spaghetti Westerns for that reason, this is not to be missed because you will never find another that is so straight-ahead about what it's doing. Lizzani basically said, "Damn it, I'm tired of pussy footing around with a few abstract comparisons. Let's lay it all right out there". Most the other reviews on this are like reading Alice in Wonderland and saying, "That doesn't seem very realistic. How can that be about logic?" But I'm not complaining. It was very nice to be so pleasantly surprised after having very low expectations.

Love it

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 9 November 2023]

Also known as Kill and Pray, this comes from director Carlo Lizzani, who also made Un Fiume di Dollari. It starts with a massacre of Mexican people as they are betrayed aby Confederate soldiers under the command of Ferguson (Mark Damon). Only a young boy survives, running into the desert where he is raised by Father Jeremy (Ferruccio Viotti) and grow into a holy man who is also incredibly good with a gun.

His stepsister Princy (Barbara Frey) rebels against her family and joins a traveling circus and the boy (Lou Castel) sets out to find her, getting the name Requiescant for the words he says every time he shoots someone. It basically means "go in peace" and he's atoning for each murder while providing last rites.

He finally finds his sister in San Antonio, a town now run by Ferguson and a place where his stepsister is forced into sexual slavery by Fergusson's henchman Dean Light (Carlo Palmucci). Once he learns who is in charge, he joins the cause of Father Don Juan (Pier Paolo Pasolini, who also worked on the script and yes, that's the same person who made Salo). Holy men sometimes need to kill, at least in the Italian West.

Damon is a revelation here, appearing as if he has walked out of a gothic horror movie all in black with his pale skin, literally treating everyone around him like they mean nothing. There's a scene where he strangles his wife while Dean watches where he seems aroused as he shouts "She died well, Dean. It was a beautiful moment for her."

I love the idea that these religious men have had enough and need to speed up God's vengeance.

This was written by not just the director and Pasolini, but also Franco Bucceri (My Dear Killer), Renato Izzo (Tentacles), Adriano Bolzoni (Sonny and Jed), Armando Crispino (The Dead Are Alive) and Lucio Battistrada (Autopsy).

I Was Curious to See Pier Paolo Pasolini

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 3 May 2011]

In Fort Hernandez, San Antonio, a group of Mexican villagers is betrayed by Confederate soldiers led by aristocratic Officer George Bellow Ferguson (Mark Damon) and they are slaughtered. After the massacre, the boy Requiescant wanders in the desert but he is rescued by the religious Father Jeremy that is traveling with his wife and daughter in his wagon. The boy is raised like a son and when he grows-up, Requiescant (Lou Castel) is very close to his stepsister Princy (Barbara Frey). One day, the rebellious Princy leaves her family, traveling with a theater company. Requiescant promises to his foster family to seek Princy out and bring her back home. Along his journey, Requiescant proves that he is a great skill with his gun to self-protect. When he arrives in San Antonio, he finds that the city belongs to Ferguson. He goes to a saloon and he finds that Princy has become a prostitute pimped by Ferguson's henchman, the gunslinger Dean Light (Ferruccio Viotti). Requiescant asks Ferguson to let Princy go with him, but the boss of the town is reluctant to release her. When Requiescant learns that he is Mexican and the fate of his family, he decides to help the priest Don Juan (Pier Paolo Pasolini) to start an uprising against Ferguson.

"Requiescant" is a western with a story that does not work well, actually is absurd. The promising beginning, with the massacre of the Mexican people, has a silly motive to bring Requiescant back to his hometown. His ability with a gun has no explanation and when he finds that his stepsister is a whore, the plot becomes ridiculous .The sequence with Requiescant asking Ferguson to let Princy go is corny and the dispute of Princy while drinking wine is dreadful. I was curious to see Pier Paolo Pasolini and probably this is the only attraction in this film. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Réquiem para Matar" ("Requiem to Kill")

One of the finest westerns you will ever see!

[jgbgraham · 10/10 · 8 July 2023]

I just had to write a little something to combat the folks on here calling this mediocre or worse... This is one incredible epic that will satisfy your lust for revenge & adventure! Pasolini makes an infamous cameo so if you're a fan of his for outrageous work like "Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom" then this is a must watch on that merit alone. I would put it in the top 10 westerns ever, for it's almost biblical storytelling, that pays off in the best ways as if God's judgement is handed down right in front of the camera. I really cannot fathom such a low rating. I found this movie to be full of soul, like the people who made it cared a lot about their precious baby. I think this should be mentioned in the same breath as Leone even if it's not as groundbreaking as some of his films.

Very, very silly western!

[Johnboy1221 · 3/10 · 9 June 2007]

I've never been all that impressed with Lou Castel as a heroic actor. He was always adequate, at best, and all I can say about him in this film is the same.

The story is what I find terrible about Kill And Pray. Castel's character just suddenly "becomes" a fast-draw gunman, without any explanation of how. And while he doesn't mind gunning down the bad guys (and in his own way even appears to enjoy the killing, at times), he feels compelled to say some scripture over their bodies afterward. Strange! Mark Damon's character is even stranger...a would-be old-time politician, who just happens to be gay (or at least that's the impression given). While nothing overtly sexual emerges, he implies that he has had an affair with his handsome blond gunman, at sometime in the past. Damon's performance in the film is one of the most interesting, however. Franco Citti does play his role well, and makes a convincing bad guy.

The daughter of the religious couple just disappears, and just happens to have been kidnapped by the very men who killed the little boy's parents...many years ago. Right! What a setup! The saloon scene is simply ludicrous! As gunmen, the bad guys watch in awe, and play along with Requiescant, as he sets up a dueling noose act. Hilarious bit of stupidity! The final fight between Requiescant and Ferguson is so overwrought, and ultimately predicable that I had to laugh. There's a bell...over a hole....go stand under the bell...hahaha.

Ultimately, I couldn't decide if this was intended to be a comedy western, or it was just a spaghetti western, gone bad.