Thousands of years ago, the Tribe
of Zod (before whom I’m sure they all knelt) grappled with the paucity of game
to hunt in their domain. But then, the Earth
trembled, and the people were frightened.
Tribal leader Iksay (Benito
Stefanelli) decides that good-hearted, musclebound lad Ela (Sam Pasco) will inherit his mantle when
he is gone rather than his own son Vood (George
Eastman). Needless to say, Vood
doesn’t cotton to any of this, and after he discovers iron (prior to the Bronze
Age, mind you), he conquers the land, but Ela still has a few tricks up his
non-sleeves.
What Umberto Lenzi’s Ironmaster
(aka La Guerra Del Ferro: Ironmaster)
draws its direct inspiration from is Conan
the Barbarian’s “Enigma of Steel” speech.
Unlike John Milius’
superlative epic of savagery, however, there is little wisdom to be found in
this film’s take outside of what it says about weaponry and men swinging their
dicks. Conan’s father speaks to his son
about the relationship of men to their world (“This you can trust”). Vood’s relationship with the Earth is
strictly on the basis of exploitation and power (“War is our reason for living”). Disregarding the differences in subtlety of
approach, Ironmaster does still have
legitimate things to say, though. When humans
discover something new, something which has the capacity for destruction, they
will tend to use it for that purpose first.
Iron is not a strong material with which to build sturdier shelters for
these people (Vood’s tribe live in caves for the entirety of the film, and the
other prominent tribe dwell in straw huts) but a tool for subjugation. In this way it talks about man’s inherently bellicose
nature, and this is even stated outright in the film’s opening monologue. While these sentiments do ring true, they’re
addressed bluntly in the movie, creating rather obvious, facile metaphors where
the possibility of a more nuanced insight is just as attainable. This is not to say that a high degree of
finesse is essential in this sort of story, especially considering its
genesis. Unfortunately, it does point to
the filmmakers’ method of building narrative, for me, this was an issue.
What I mean by this is that Lenzi and company structure the film in
a “lather, rinse, repeat” fashion.
There’s a scene of Vood and his minions slaughtering a bunch of
people. Cut to Ela and Isa (Elvire Audray) wandering around,
lamenting their plight, and arguing over if and how they will fight Vood. Cut to Vood lording it over his newly
enslaved iron gatherers. And so on. It gets old after the first two iterations,
and this is in a film that’s almost one hundred minutes long. That it’s all delivered in the plainest
manner possible only makes it more painful to endure. This is how much I like all two of you; I sat
through the whole thing just to report this.
But back to the film’s more
interesting elements. Aside from the
abuses of physical power in the film there are the abuses of religious power. Ela’s tribe worshipped the god Zod, and he is
more or less a benevolent deity (he’s called “Punisher of Evil”), in as much as
any absentee god is. His mouthpiece
(priest, what-have-you) in the tribe is Rag (Jacques Herlin), and he is thoughtful and considered in his counsel
to Iksay. Nevertheless, Rag is an older
man, so what he augurs in the flames of the tribe’s camp fires could just as
easily be his interpretation of probabilities based on past experiences, but
his advice is still sound. After Vood
unearths the iron, he is approached by Lith (Pamela Prati), who worships Eferron (get it?), the Earth Trembler. Vood and Lith use the gift of iron as proof
that Eferron has named Vood as supreme ruler and that the god’s wish is for his
people to crush the world beneath their feet.
Of course, the other tribe members are enthralled by this, largely because
they are inherent followers. However,
they also experience the feeling of might that comes with conquest, and they desire
more. This is all reinforced by Lith and
Vood’s insistence on their divine right.
With just a small amount of manufactured/imagined proof, the pair gull
their fellow men under the guise of Eferron’s will. This is not to say that Lith and Vood don’t
believe that they are justified in their motivations or the genesis of same (or
we are never shown anything indicating different). By that same token, Lith seems far more
deceptive than Vood, so if anything, one could easily suppose that the entire
plot is Lith’s machinations with Vood acting as bulky figurehead for a
male-dominated society.
Another thing this movie does (in
fact, what so many movies of this ilk do) is places its various factions into
distinct groups with little to no intermingling. So, along with Vood’s warmongers and Isa’s
peaceniks, we also have the Mudmen, the Ursos (read: Apemen), and (apparently)
the Lepers. This is important for
several reasons. One, there need to be
distinctions between the factions which the audience can easily
distinguish. Two, there need to be contagonists
to get in the way of both the protagonists’ and antagonists’ goals. Three, other tribes are needed to draw out
the plot and pad the runtime with (in this case, rote) action set pieces. Four, there need to be more wildly inhuman
tribes outside of the main two so that the primary conflict makes a bit more
sense. After all, if any of the
contagonist tribes were physically indiscernible from Vood’s or Isa’s, they
would become viable contenders for rulers of the land rather than visually interesting
monsters/subhumans to be dominated. I
mean, the Baseball Furies were never going to rule all the five boroughs of New
York City any more than the Crazies were going to rule the above ground world
of Manhattan, but they are memorable as serious (but still minor) obstacles in
their cinematic universes.
One final distinction, perhaps
the most important one (perhaps not; I’ll leave that to you), is in the nature
of the two tribes as embodied in their locales.
Vood’s tribe is hard. They live
in caves next to a volcano. Their weapons
are rigid, unbending. Their men even eat
iron (yes, really). Isa’s tribe is
populated with tranquil fishermen. They
live in individual straw huts under an open sky. They have no weapons because they believe
that people will leave you alone if you do them no harm. At first, Ela believes that the way to defeat
Vood is with iron weapons of his own, but he comes to the realization that flexibility
can overcome inflexibility when applied properly. The ultimate revelation of the film falls in
line with Lao Tzu’s quote, “nothing
is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” And while, the protagonists follow their learned
philosophy to the correct conclusion of this story, we know how humanity will
develop down the line (assuming this all takes place on our Earth, naturally),
making for a hollow victory of sorts.
MVT: George Eastman’s Hercules-esque headgear is the best thing in the
film. Normally, I would be inclined to
give it to Eastman himself, but he
doesn’t do anything especially notable in the movie, and besides, he looks
better doing it with the headgear on than with it off.
Make or Break: The Break for
me was Vood’s discovery of the semi-titular ore. The volcano effects are quite well implemented,
and this is in many ways the most interesting scene in the entire film. Sadly, it also inexplicably succeeds in being
overlong and dull. The repetitive
structure of the film’s remainder is simply more nails in the coffin,
comparatively speaking.
Score: 4.75/10
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