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Last week, I talked about my affection for two things: High Plains Drifter and Kurosawa movies. Yesterday was my day in the sun as Rashomom was playing on the Independent Film Channel in the morning and High Plains Drifter played late last night.

As it had been awhile since I had seen both films, I had to tell you, it was weird that I had just written about both things and that I got to wallow myself in their utter brilliance.

Rashomom is a compelling, wonderfully detailed film that relies on the new modern age of cinema combined with components of the opening techniques of silent film. According to Wikipedia, it was the first film made in direct sunlight, and when you watch Kurosawa’s work, you realize that there are only three sets in the whole movie. Doesn’t matter. The movie is inspiring, telling the story of a rape and a murder from four different perspectives, it is a classic tale of that everyone’s perspective is different even when witnessing different events and creating discussing those events. Except for the bandit, played by Toshiro Mifune, whose story is tainted with something of animalistic madness, each story told about the events on an afternoon in the woods is guided by the narrator at the moment’s own agenda.

Is the movie dated? No, not really. Good storytelling transcends time. You might be a person who doesn’t like foreign films, but the bottom line is that this movie set the standard for film-making. And keep in mind, this movie is nearly 60 years old.

And read about the Rashomom Effect. Perspectives always offer contradiction because each human is different with their own scheme and plan.

High Plains Drifter. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways? A western that is a ghost story. A western that delves into the horror of man’s actions and the spiritual consequences that come from those actions. A western that shows the cowardice of certain men and women, and an entity who seeks vengeance because of this town’s self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

But you see, High Plains Drifter doesn’t play it’s cards where it tells you the story. You have to figure all this out for yourself, and that’s what makes it so delicious.

My God, this movie is so good that I just can’t stand it.

The Stranger who enters Lago, Arizona is sadistic, unsympathetic and, at times, so evil that it’s hard to have any sort of emotion for him because of his lack of emotion. The parallels of him riding the pale horse of death as one of the four horseman of the Apocalypse is just juicy stuff. Clint Eastwood’s homage to Don Siegel and Sergio Leone and then making their movies into one of his own is just stunning.

There are clues all through this movie that tells you that not all is what it seems. After he rapes the town Harpy (told you his character wasn’t sympathetic AT ALL) she shoots him in the washtub at close point range, and he isn’t hurt is a small clue. After the town Harpy comes back for more after he takes over the town due to the community “leaders” living in fear and willing to offer their souls for his assistance (and then decide to kill him after she throws down with him, our eyes are always on the door. So how the hell did the Stranger get on the roof. We were watching the door the whole time (or were we?)

I could go on, and this is probably just too long to read, but I can’t help but be smitten by the sparse, yet patient (oh so patient) direction of Eastwood.

On a side-note, I saw this movie when it came out when I was about eight years old at the theater. I didn’t get it and it always freaked me out. When I watched it again as an adult, I understood why I didn’t get it.

Because it’s pretty damned complex, and once again, is another film about perspective, but this time, it is us as the audience, which is left to determine what we just witnessed. Who the hell is The Stranger? Well, we know, deep in our hearts we know, but The Stranger says on his grey horse at the end of the movie in the last damned line to Mordecai as his small ally marks the unmarked grave. He tells us but because the movie is such a weird roller coaster ride, it’s hard to grasp what we have just seen.

And then The Stranger disappears in the heat as he rides away.

So, I am no Cuppa with the Cinema Obscura, but these two movies are so tasty that I had to share. So pleasing to the palate, and yet so violent and disturbing, that I could not take my eyes away from them.