Ulzana

Ulzana (1974) is an adventure Western worth watching online as a prime example of DEFA's "Red Western" tradition. Gottfried Kolditz directs, and Gojko Mitić — the defining face of East European frontier films — plays the Mimbreño Apache chief. The story unfolds in Arizona at the close of the 1840s.

The tribe has long since traded the war path for farming. They have dug an irrigation channel, brought in a rich first harvest and simply want to sell the surplus. Tucson traders and white settlers, though, fear losing their cut, and the schemers of the "Tucson Ring" pocket the government money meant to supply the reservation while handing over spoiled goods. The channel is blown up, Ulzana is wounded and presumed dead, and the tribe is driven toward barren land before the survivors flee south into the Sierra Madre. Renate Blume and Rolf Hoppe appear alongside Mitić.

This East German, Romanian and Soviet co-production flips the usual sympathies: the camera stands with the Apaches, not the cowboys, and names settler greed outright. It rewards anyone curious to see the genre from an unfamiliar angle and to take in Gojko Mitić's rugged lead. Stream Ulzana (1974) online on iFILM.