SAD HILL UNEARTHED (Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Santa Barbara, California USA 2018)

Ben Meyers’ rating: 2.8|5.0 Starsìì

Sad Hill Unearthed has a redundant storyline with a hard to reconcile reason for the restoration of this cemetery. After a difficult, laborious restoration, accomplished by many, good-hearted volunteers, the cemetery enjoys a brief celebration and then is deliberately allowed to return to nature. Unlike Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona, it is not opened to the public as a pilgrimage site for their future enjoyment of the wonderful restoration. The effort, hard won, is purposely allowed to sink into the sands of time with no reason for that decision other than the ‘fragility of the environment’ when it is that very environment that sank, within 50 years, that historical location into near oblivion. It is like building a beautiful home, celebrating the home for one night, and then pouring gasoline over it and burning it to the ground. There seems no purpose or rationale here and the legitimacy of the effort seems lost.

Film Poster Courtesy of Wikipedia

Storyline

A team of volunteers restore the graveyard from the Sergio Leone movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Additional Thanks

Thank you to Director Guillermo de Oliveira for directing effort. Thank you to Producers Luisa Cowell and Guillermo de Oliveira for making the film possible. Additional characters/cast include: Himself (Ennio Morricone), Himself (James Hetfield), Himself (Joe Dante), Himself (Clint Eastwood), Himself (Sergio Leone), Himself (Álex de la Iglesia), Himself (Sergio Salvati), Himself (Joseba del Valle), Himself (David Alba Romero), and (Sergio Garcia Hernández).

Buy a ticket? Yes? No? Maybe?

Maybe. It’s interesting to see how nature can reabsorb, in a few short years, nearly any disturbance to its surface area and how much labor is required to push back nature in order to restore a location to its original condition.

Video Critique Available Here:

Ben Meyers