Cemetery Without Crosses

Film Review by Ross McIndoe | 27 Jul 2015
Film title: Cemetery Without Crosses
Director: Robert Hossein
Starring: Michèle Mercier, Robert Hossein, Lee Burton, Daniele Vargas, Philippe Baronnet,
Release date: 20 Jul
Certificate: 15

Revenge plots have an appealing simplicity – they clarify everyone's motivation and streamline the story towards its inevitable conclusion. Their sparseness matches the Western's penchant for broad strokes. A small cast of characters can be quickly set up with battle lines drawn between them and a few visual idiosyncrasies to highlight the main players – Eastwood had his poncho and cigarillo, here Hossein's Manuel has a leather glove and sits his gun backwards in its holster so that he can draw Southpaw-style.

Like its hero, the movie does its talking through action. Manuel barely opens his mouth for the duration of the movie but his silence speaks a lifetime's worth of hard lessons. When he is forced wearily into action, he dispatches of his foes with deadly grace. Just like him, Cemetery of Crosses spares few words and relies instead on stylish action sequences and elegant, atmospheric cinematography to achieve its ends. [Ross McIndoe]

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Released by Arrow Films