Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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.

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.

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.

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.