John Farrow's Hondo is one of the purest distillations of the John Wayne persona that I have ever encountered. From the first scene where a dusty, trail-weary Wayne stumbles out of the desert to the film's final cavalry battle, he is perfectly portrayed as a larger-than-life icon. It follows Wayne as Hondo Lane, a gunfighter-turned-US Army Cavalry dispatch rider, as he stumbles into the lives of Mrs. Angie Lowe and her young son Johnny. They live in a ranch in the middle of Apache territory. For the longest time they lived in peace with the Apache. But after being betrayed by the Army, the Apache are on the war-path. Soon Hondo finds himself trapped between loyalty to the Army, loyalty to Lowe and her son, loyalty to the Apache way of life (they raised him as a child), and loyalty to his own moral code. But the heart of the film is Wayne's relationship with Lowe and her son. Wayne quickly becomes a surrogate father figure to Johnny, teaching him how to fish, swim, and even be a man. He falls in love with Angie, but their love is challenged when Hondo unknowingly kills her husband. The film also demonstrates a keen awareness of the plight of Native Americans against the forces of White Civilization. The Apache are certainly depicted as "noble savages" that must be overcome in order for America to expand. But the film takes pains to point out that the Apache are the true victims. Hondo is a film that manages to combine high adventure with emotional subtleties the likes of which are rarely seen outside of John Ford Westerns. (Side note: That last sentence seems apropos considering that Ford actually directed the film's final shoot-out.)
9/10
0 Yorumlar