Jonathan e o Urso

E.C. is back after a long string of unspectacular flops dating back almost twenty years before the release of this late entry Spaghettio. Franco Nero returns in a sloppy, long-haired guise emulated after his titular Keoma, but the similarities to that masterpiece end right about there unless you want to count the atrocious, narrating vocal musicals that are so self-absorbed and confident in their strangeness, I have to give the makers some ballsy credit. The film comes off as pretentious propaganda, tackling numerous themes unsuccessfully, the most blatant and offensive being racial prejudice and oil production. And naturally, given its release date, when revisionist Westerns were all the rage in Hollywood, we're deprived of proper bloody action and served CBS mini-series drama and cues. I counted only one decent slow-mo Enzo battle and that consisted mainly of dangerous horse stunts not balletic squibs and shooting spray. The bear subplot was a new idea albeit handled with a lacking child performance which somehow finds its way into every dramatic arc for the rest of the feature. The most amusing instant comes during a fight where the participants turn into their younger counterparts! The lil' cub was pretty cute though.

David Hess and John Saxon provide some legitimate villainry. Even Enzo's real-life papa adds a bearded grittiness to his role. On the technical side, this is the most polished work Castellari has done. Gone are the paintball squibs, shoddy camera-work and cheap pyrotechnics, but all this guerrilla charm is a trade off for the stock orchestral music and dramatic fodder. I'll take The Big Racket any day. Hell, Light Blast.

Director Castellari reteams with star/co-producer Franco Nero in this Italo-Russian production which is a belated follow-up of sorts to their earlier, acclaimed collaboration KEOMA (1976). This newer venture shares with that earlier one not only its Western setting and a similarly grizzled, long-haired hero but also a touch of pretentiousness and a painful song score (composed by the unsympathetic minstrel figure who appears intermittently throughout)!

The film starts well enough with the black and white flashback to the hero's traumatic witnessing as a young boy of his parents' slaying by a trio of greedy badmen after their gold, while the segments featuring the boy's interaction with a playful bear cub are also quite amiable. However, we have seen the "white man among the Redskins" scenario – albeit incongruously played here by Mongols – which follows soon after (complete with their seemingly interminable quasi-mystical passages) far too often for those scenes to propose anything new. Equally predictable are David Hess' villainous overtaking of a town, Nero falling foul of Hess and his henchmen and their various confrontations; interestingly, Hess had to complete his part in a short space of time because he couldn't get along with Nero – with whom he had previously acted in HITCH-HIKE (1977).

Things are enlivened by the late entrance of powerful entrepreneur John Saxon who, with his aged group of gunslingers, wipes the town clean of Hess and their unaccountably campy rivals – a group of stud-sporting, leather-wearing, bare-chested musclemen!! Like Keoma before him, Franco Nero's character here occasionally steps outside of himself and is witness to his own past experiences as a child; also, he suffers greatly at the hands of the current villain including crucifixion. The climactic confrontation (staged, again as was KEOMA's, in a barnyard) is appropriately rousing and ends the film on a positive note which redeems some of its earlier flaws.

The two Men behind the great "Keoma," Enzo G. Castellari and Franco Nero, have here returned to familiar territory with perhaps a broader and more accessible (read: "not quite as good") vision of much the same character. Or at least he has the same hat.

While "Jonathan Degli Orsi" doesn't have the uncompromising, feverish fantasy feel of its predecessor, it is perfectly convincing in its chosen setting, a forested wilderness about to be exploited by a would-be oil magnate (John Saxon) that is currently inhabited by an Indian tribe and their sacred burial ground. Enter Jonathan (Nero), an orphaned white man of Polish descent who has been raised by bears and the aforementioned tribe. After leaving his adoptive family to seek revenge for his parents' murder, a quest which has brought him face to face with the futility of his rage, he returns to his true people, the ones who raised him, only to find them under attack by the world he wants nothing to do with.

And what do you think he does?

This film could be seen as Castellari and Nero's answer to the previous year's "Unforgiven," as it both pays tribute to and meditates on themes of the Western genre; the meditation is coming from a similarly aged and wisened point of view. For my money, this particular meditation/tribute is more clever, more accomplished and has a much wider scope. It is beautifully filmed, excellently acted, and superbly written. It has a soundtrack that, while not having much to do with Spaghetti Westerns, enhances the story quite well. In one way it improves over "Keoma" in that it contains songs with lyrics that actually COMPLIMENT the film rather than taking away from it.

This film's winks and nods to the by-gone "Spaghetti" genre are all quite clever; some of them made me laugh out loud. Watch as Castellari actually provides a real-world explanation for the mysterious fog that always rolls in for the climactic shoot-out. There's also a great scene that I'm sure was meant to evoke "Django the Bastard" as well as plenty of references to the director's own "Keoma." What's really cool, though, is that this film doesn't try to BE a Spaghetti Western while doing this. It finds its own place in the scheme of things. It very much feels like a nineties kind of film, but a damn good one.

Castellari's Peckinpah-style action has come a long way and is a pleasure to watch. The actor who plays Jonathan as a child is quite good and has an uncanny charisma. I would definitely urge fans of "Keoma," Castellari and Nero to seek out this rather difficult-to-find film. Like I said, I was not disappointed.

I would also encourage fans of "Dances With Wolves" type dramas to check out this one and see how it ought to be done.

I think not... there's been a few since then such as "My West" with Harvey Keitel but maybe this shall be the last notable one, by one of the few remaining original Spaghetti Western directors Enzo G. Castellari.

As some you know, the Italian film industry was in complete disarray by the end of the 1980's as they failed to be able to compete against American films and video sales. By 1990 Italian film was relegated mostly to low budget art films and TV movies, but in the early 90's the dissolution of the Soviet Union brought about a continuance of the spirit of cooperation between Italy and Russia not enjoyed much since the early 70's. Several big budget co-productions emerged in these first few years but largely became fiasco's such as the only recently finished QUIET FLOWS THE DON and the ever-languishing GENGHIS KHAN. In the true spirit of Italian copycat film-making, with DANCES WITH WOLVES garnering much critical and financial praise at the time, it only made sense to try a Spaghetti Western in the vast expanses of the largely untouched motherland. Hire on Castellari, who in turn brings a few of his regulars (but strangely no Romano Puppo), David Hess, John Saxon, and you get a highly entertaining oddly cast and strangely themed last gasp of a nearly forgotten genre.

Franco Nero produces (put up the money in a retread down memory lane) and plays a part that would have better suited him 15 years earlier (and it did when it was called "KEOMA") as a gunslinger raised by Indians and befriended by a bear. He's out for revenge against the thugs who killed his birth parents while trying to stop an evil politician (Saxon) from ruining the environment with oil prospecting, plus he still has an old rivalry to settle with his step brother. There's also a local ruffian played by Roderigo Obregon (I am guessing that he was being groomed by the Italian film industry to be the next Werner Pochath - to play a creepy sleaze bag in every film), who kidnaps Nero's woman.

While this is easily one of Enzo's most technically polished films... especially in terms of cinematography with MANY beautiful shots, JONATHAN is lacking much of the fun and originality of Enzo's previous efforts. It's still a good film, but pales in comparison to KEOMA, to which it owes very much, if not everything. Characteristically for Castellari, it's loaded with slow motion (though editor Moriani is no Amicucci or Tomassi), and there's a few film in-jokes like the chief villain Goodwin being named after Enzo's son-in-law Greg Goodwin. Many of the action sequences are rather unbelievable, or borderline ridiculous, and a lot of the Native American extras look more like Kazakhs or Uzbekhs to me, but I'm just nitpicking.

Considering the rest of Italy's output at the time, it's amazing this film is as good as it is. A shame it never got a proper distribution, as well as a shame that it didn't re-kick-start Castellari's career.

The Franco Nero and Enzo Castellari collaboration is best known for Keoma, which is generally (and rightly) accepted to be one of the last great Spaghetti Westerns. Filmed twenty years later, this film - although not particularly well known or lauded - stands up to the high quality set by its predecessor.

Jonathan of the Bears continues on the racism themes noted within Keoma, concentrating on an orphan's relationship with the indians and bear that nurtured him following his parent's execution, and the "greedy" white man that has no respect for the nature or beliefs of the natives.

This film is very touching, dealing with the sensitive issue of the plight of the indians and other minority races, whilst maintaining the exciting shootouts that we expect to see in our spaghetti westerns. In particular, the opening sequence that charts the death of Jonathan's parents, and his development from man to boy - the majority of which is shot in black and white - is very moving.

It is not the easiest of films to find, but I would definitely recommend it (particularly for those people that enjoyed Keoma).