Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952)

Written for the catalogue of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2019 to accompany a June 25 screening of the film from a vintage BFI print. — EK


This year's Il Cinema Ritrovato offers some of the most eclectic westerns ever made: Henry King's realist, anti-violence drama The Gunfighter, Budd Boetticher's austere and minimalist Ride Lonesome and Tourneur's Argentinean western, Way of a Gaucho. Interestingly, the latter was meant to be directed by King, too, whose wife's illness prevented him from accepting an assignment which demanded shooting entirely in Argentina.

Gauchos are a "special breed of men answering only to their laws and codes," the opening sequence voice-over clarifies with its clear analogy to cowboys, setting the tone for a classic western narrative. The film follows the story of gaucho Martín Penalosa, from imprisonment, after killing a man in a duel, to agreeing serve in the militia which he eventually deserts. This gives the film its dramatic core, especially after Martín's commander, Major Salinas, embarks on a long chase to capture the deserter who by now has become a hero bandit.

When Martín saves the life of a woman and later falls in love with her, the film finds its romantic weight. The ending, a rather optimistic one, stays faithful to both the myth of the gaucho and that return to law and order – a conclusion that the Juan Perón government (who were closely monitoring the production of the film) had possibly expected. It's also been claimed that the production of the film in Argentina inspired the local filmmakers to produce that country's first western, El último cow-boy (Juan Sires, 1954).

In his brilliant study of Tourneur's cinema, Chris Fujiwara calls this "a poignant meditation on freedom and desire," and along with Anne of the Indies, "perhaps the most beautiful of Tourneur’s films." A great part of that beauty lies in the use of colour, which is totally lost in home video versions of the film, even those in supposedly high definition. The actual colours, as seen in this print from the 60s, with their dark blues and reds against the bright backdrops of outdoor scenes, are captured, like the lives of its three leading characters, rough and crisp.

Ehsan Khoshbakht