West and Soda/Review: Difference between revisions

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West and Soda’s entertainment value is a bit hampered by it’s age and due to my nationality (I’m sure there are many jokes and gags that I missed because I’m American), and I personally find the film to be just a little above average in terms of both quality and entertainment. But if you’ve already scoured the depths of the genre and are interested in something new, pick this up. You may just be surprised by it.
West and Soda’s entertainment value is a bit hampered by it’s age and due to my nationality (I’m sure there are many jokes and gags that I missed because I’m American), and I personally find the film to be just a little above average in terms of both quality and entertainment. But if you’ve already scoured the depths of the genre and are interested in something new, pick this up. You may just be surprised by it.

Revision as of 23:41, 30 November 2017

West and Soda Header.jpg

Sometime before 1965 Attilio Giovannini suggested the idea, “Why not create a feature film?” to Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto. Considering that Bozzetto’s only experience in the film industry was creating small animated shorts, an animated film would be a considerable undertaking, however with help from Giovannini, and a group of young Italian animators, Bozzetto would create an animated western film. Taking ideas from many of his favorite westerns and utilizing the different stories and film stars of the genre, he would mix them all up into what he called “West and Soda”, a title that reflected the multitude of different concepts that he had compiled. With the film opening onto cow skulls strewn across a brown monument valley like landscape, and a stagecoach being mauled by a frantic band of indians, it’s a definite reminder that though the film was created in Italy, the film would resemble less of the Spaghetti Western’s that were beginning to take shape, and more of the classic Gary Cooper and Glenn Ford venture’s from the decade before.

The Film:

Clementina, a young female farmer who owns a very conspicuous square of green fertile land in the middle of a large desert, is being harassed by the local land baron Cattivissimo and his two henchmen, Ursus and Slim, who want her hand in marriage and more importantly, her land. After his attempts to convince Clementina to marry him end up with him receiving a boot to the face, Cattivissimo decides enough is enough and resorts to terrorizing her. Becoming unnerved by the constant bullying she is at wit’s end, but before all hope is lost, a lone pistol wearing wanderer named Johnny saunters onto her green patch of land, looking for shelter and seemingly answering her prayers...

West and Soda doesn’t care much about the story however, it’s really just a means to carry us from one joke or visual gag to another. It’s especially evident by the fact that most of the film enjoy’s playing on the many tropes of the genre, with its villain literally being mean enough to hurt a fly (he keeps them in cages, then letting them go so he can shoot them, also his name means “Very Bad” for goodness sake). To Johnny being such a pacifist that he goes nearly the entire film without his guns (because he lost all feelings of violence after killing his psychologist of course). To the entertaining final chase where in mid gallop Cattivissimo’s horse springs a flat hoof that has to be aired up. If I had to compare it to something, It’d be to the likes of the Rocky and Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right cartoons from around the same time.

In fact it’s not just the humor, but the entire visual style seems very reminiscent of Gamma Production’s animated cartoons as well, down to the crudely drawn characters and animation. It’s fair to say that the visual style is fairly ugly, proportions and angles of houses and objects are skewed and odd looking, and characters are not particularly detailed or interesting to look at, though they are capable of creating some hilarious expressions at certain points. But despite these shortcomings there’s moments where you’re also surprised by some of the wonderfully simple visuals as well, such as when black storm clouds slowly move in over the town during a blood red sunset, with the shadows of the buildings slowly growing longer and skinnier out over the desert. The animation and art may not match the extraordinary abilities of Disney, but it’s adorable and has a wonderful innocence to it. You can tell that despite the lack of professional big studio polish, the animators really did care about the product they were creating.

The Music:

I’d also like to take a moment to give some recognition to the beautiful soundtrack by Giampiero Boneschi. As Bruno Bozzetto explained Boneschi helped find a happy medium between a classical Western score, a cartoon parody, and including a hint of his own ingenuity. Boneschi utilized around 30 instruments and also incorporated the talents of Alessandroni’s I Cantori Moderni for the main and ending credit music. The score’s opening harmonica lilts into a rumbling of large drums, then into a strumming guitar, and finally into the full orchestra with the I Cantori Moderni soaring above it all. Other highlights from the score include the cheeky romanticized chase theme filled with strings and galloping wood blocks, and the climactic final duel theme that slowly builds up into a heroic crescendo of brass. The score was made available by Beat Records in 2015. Beforehand it was only available on a limited Vinyl run from Carosello Records, and commanded an extremely high price.

The DVD:

The best available release of the film is from Barn Productions, which comes in a handsome cardboard DVD case (similar to the Koch Media releases) and also features a very elegant animated menu system. The film itself is featured in a 4:3 aspect ratio and is absent of any compression artifacts or interlacing. There is adequate detail in the picture, though it is a mite fuzzy, and age related damage is kept to a minimum. In all it’s a pleasurable viewing experience. Two audio tracks are provided, both in Italian, one in dual mono and another in 5.1 surround, both sound acceptable and are free of any hiss or crackles or distortion. However it is a little weak due to the noise removal done in post, and because of that it loses some detail. The only gripe I have with this DVD is the subtitles. There’s two choices, Italian and English, I can’t speak for the Italian subtitles but the English subtitles are botched. Sentences are confusing, words are misspelled, and there are a multitude of mistakes that make it difficult to understand the dialogue. It’s basically the equivalent of processing something through Google Translate. However the English subtitles for the bonus feature interviews seem to be accurate. Bonus features include four several minute interviews with Bruno Bozzetto and the other creators of the film as well as galleries of concept art and characters from the film. Despite the confusing subtitles there appears to be extreme pride taken in the production of this DVD, and I was surprised by the amount of time that must have gone into creating it.

Screenshots: WS titoli.jpg WS 1.jpg WS 3.jpg WS 4.jpg WS 5.jpg WS 7.jpg


West and Soda’s entertainment value is a bit hampered by it’s age and due to my nationality (I’m sure there are many jokes and gags that I missed because I’m American), and I personally find the film to be just a little above average in terms of both quality and entertainment. But if you’ve already scoured the depths of the genre and are interested in something new, pick this up. You may just be surprised by it.

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