Perdita Durango

Summary

“Romeo Dolorosa. Santero, drug dealer, bank robber, scumbag.”

Severin Films made film fans incredibly excited when they announced that their label would begin releasing certain films on 4K UHD. Like a few other niche film distributors (Kino Lorber, Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video, Blue Underground) Severin has decided to adopt the newest technology and allow the market place to decide if 4K UHD is ready to be purchased by the rabid film collectors that keep physical media alive. I applaud their decision to take this step. For their inaugural releases on 4K UHD they have chosen two titles that film collectors have long wanted from Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia – Perdita Durango and The Day of the Beast (El Dia de la Bestia.) 

I was more than excited to watch both of these releases, but Perdita Durango in particular was of interest to me. It is based on a novel by Barry Gifford. Barry Gifford is the author of Wild at Heart – which was adapted into the classic David Lynch film starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. In fact, Perdita was a character in both the novel and film (as played by Isabella Rossellini in the film,) and Perdita Durango is the name of the second novel in the Sailor and Lula series. In preparation for watching the film, I purchased and read both Wild at Heart and Perdita Durango. Both books were great and about as gritty and interesting as I had anticipated. I am happy to report that Alex de la Iglesia’s Perdita Durango is an excellent adaptation of the novel (with some key differences) and also a great sister film to David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. It is like Wild at Heart’s crazier, more extreme, Spanish cousin. It is less romantic and more sinister, but both films feel like they take place in similarly twisted universes.

As the film begins, Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) sits at an airport bar. A man approaches her and begins to hit on her. She makes a proposition to him that is so crass he walks away quickly. She has come to Phoenix to pick up the ashes of her dead sister so she can scatter them in Mexico. After crossing the border, she meets a drug dealer named Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem.) Romeo has recently robbed a bank to pay off a debt to Catalina (Demian Bechir.) Romeo is also a practitioner of Santeria who has a following in Mexico. He is known for his rituals in which he mutilates corpses in front of the paying crowd in a blood and cocaine drenched ceremony. Romeo and Perdita are immediately smitten with one another. Romeo explains that in the near future he will be coming into some money for a transportation job for the mysterious gangster Santos (Don Stroud.) Santos wants Romeo to transport a truck full of human fetuses from Mexico to Las Vegas to Romeo’s cousin Reggie for use in the production of an expensive hand moisturizer. In the meantime, Perdita encourages Romeo to snatch some gringos to use for a possible cannibalistic act in his next Santeria ritual. They cross the border into America and grab two teenagers – Dwayne (Harley Cross) and his girlfriend Estelle (Aimee Graham.) They cross the border back into Mexico and their relationship with their captives is very strange. They only plan to kill one of the teenagers and can not decide which one. Perdita and Romeo rape the two teenagers and then prepare for the ceremony that will be helped along by witch doctor Adolfo (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.) That ceremony is interrupted by federal agent Woody Dumas (James Gandolfini) who has been trailing the psychopathic lovers since they first met up. Perdita and Romeo take their captives on an insane adventure as they attempt to evade federal agents and Texas deputies while still working on the fetus transport job for Santos.

As you can probably tell from reading the plot, this film is a good example of extreme cinema. Perdita Durango was a film production backed by Spanish and Mexican money that probably could never be made today. Thanks to an influx of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Peter Jackson, there was a time in the mid-Nineties where money could flow to unconventional filmmakers like Alex de la Iglesias. Perdita Durango was made for eight million dollars, which is a pittance compared to the crazy amounts spent on Marvel movies, but would still never receive a green light today. Unfortunately, once the film was completed no one in America wanted to distribute the film. It sat on the shelf for two years before finding distribution on DVD and was not released in America in its original uncut form until this new Severin release. The title of the film for that release was also changed to Dance with the Devil, which is an absolutely unnecessary change. The cuts to the film were numerous and have been examined in great length in this article: (https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/feature-articles/perdita/)

Perdita Durango is a wild ride and one that I was happy to take, despite a few minor discrepancies. First and foremost, the film is an adaptation that captures the essence of the novel and improves upon its best aspects. This should come as no surprise given that the screenplay was written in part by novelist Barry Gifford himself. Gifford is an accomplished screenwriter who also wrote the film Lost Highway with David Lynch. Filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia took all the best aspects of the novel but improved upon them by adding in numerous satirical elements that are aimed directly at white America. The film is as crazy and extreme as the description implies with lots of violence, sex, and bad behavior. The actors are all game for the crazy antics onscreen and turn in some truly remarkable performances. Rosie Perez gives her best onscreen performance as the femme fatale Perdita. She channels an energy that is comparable to Russ Meyer’s Tura Satana (a major influence on the role.) The role demands a lot from her and she never falters in her delivery. Javier Bardem was years away from his breakthrough role in No Country for Old Men, but his performance as Romeo shows that he has always been incredibly talented. He holds nothing back and brings amazing energy to the role. The film manages to make these two vicious psychopaths enjoyable to watch. Everything is so over-the-top that viewers want to go along for the ride. 

The only misstep that the film makes is that the two rapes in the film are shown and implied to be somewhat consensual. I think that this probably played better in 1997 than it does now, but a bit of subtlety on that would have been preferable. In the novel for example, this whole sequence was just a few sentences, whereas the movie fixates on this activity for a little while and made me feel wildly uncomfortable. It’s an important plot point and it needed to be in the film because it is in the book, but I thought the way it was handled was pretty tasteless. Even filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia in his excellent interview featured on the disc seemed to feel like that scene would not play today. 

Luckily, this one sequence aside, Perdita Durango is wildly inventive and unlike any other road trip film that I have ever seen. Alex de la Iglesia was right to take the opportunity to satirize the pastel colored America in the film. His takedowns of America’s colonial past and its subjugation of the indigenous people that lived in Mexico before Europeans arrived is very cleverly done through the discussions held between the teenagers and the killers. These discussions still ring true today. Idiotic programming playing on televisions is a common motif in both Perdita Durango and Day of the Beast, and in both films it made me laugh. The film has a sly sense of humor to it and understands that it is being outrageous. For example, in one of the best sequences, as the killers take their teenagers across the border they turn on Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s classic song “Spanish Flea,” which is best known for being used as the theme on The Dating Game. That surreal moment shows exactly the playful nature of the film, where Spanish themes can be explored through the lens of America.

The casting in the film has a wonderful ensemble. James Gandolfini, a few years before he would become incredibly famous as Tony Soprano, is amazing as Woody Dumas. This is an incredibly physical role and Gandolfini brings the dark comedy to the forefront of the character. It is easily one of the best roles he ever played. I wish he had lived longer because he was so incredibly talented. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is another great casting choice. He turns a very small part from the book into one of the most memorable characters in the film. His song at the end of the film is also pitch perfect. Demian Bechir has a small role which he nails. Alex Cox, the independent thinking director of Repo Man, is cast as a straight laced agent named Doyle. It’s a nice wink to knowing cineastes. Aimee Graham and Harley Cross are both enjoyable in the roles of the victimized teenagers. Like the other roles in the film, a lot is demanded from their performances. Alex de la Iglesia draws great performances out of all the actors in the film. The cinematography by Flavio Labiano is very well done and utilizes widescreen anamorphic lenses to great effect. The film intentionally brought up the contrast levels to achieve its unique look.

Overall – Perdita Durango is a fascinating film. It’s an exciting, intense, extreme, and at times deranged journey that will surely entertain people that want to take a walk on the wild edge of cinema. While one sequence went too far in my opinion, there is just way too much to like about the film to dismiss it. It’s a shame that the film never received a fair shake until now, but it is a wonderful choice for Severin to bring to 4K UHD.

Video

Severin Films has provided a great looking transfer of Perdita Durango in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in 2160p. Watching either the Blu-ray or the UHD, there is a lot to enjoy visually. The UHD presentation benefits from the use of HDR. The UHD has excellent fine detail for the most part aside from a slight softness during the opening credits. Cinematographer Flavio Fabiano did a great job of bringing the numerous Mexican and American border town locations to life. Fans of the film will surely want to purchase the UHD for the uptick in detail, but the Blu-ray of the film also looks fantastic.

Audio

Severin has given the option of both Spanish and English DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks. The film was designed with surround effects in mind and comes across great. The fantastic score by Simon Boswell comes across the speakers well, accentuating the moments of insanity in the film.

Supplements:

The 4K disc offers two trailers as its sole supplements. All of the other supplements are located on the second disc. This was no big issue to me.

• On the Border – director Alex de la Iglesias gives a hearty and excellent interview that covers a ton of territory over half an hour. He discusses everything from the differences between the novel and film, the excellent actors in the film, and the more extreme elements that define Perdita Durango. He considers Perdita Durango and The Last Circus to be his two best achievements. This is a fantastic and consistently entertaining interview that should not be skipped by fans of the film.
• Writing Perdita Durango – author Barry Gifford, who wrote Wild at Heart and the Perdita Durango novel on which the film was based, discussed how the film was originally developed with director Bigas Luna and eventually ended up as a project for Alex de la Iglesias. The writer seems to for the most part like the way the adaptation turned out – especially the acting in the film – but he does repeatedly describe the style of the film as a “comic book” style. I like Gifford’s writing, so this piece was really enjoyable.
• Dancing with the Devil – film historian Rebekah Mckendry discusses Perdita Durango in terms of its place historically as an extreme film, within Spanish cinema, and briefly discusses the true events that may have inspired the novel.
• Narcosatanicos: Perdita Durango and the Matamoros Cult – this is a strange story of real life murderers Adolfo Costanzo and Sara Aldrete that practiced a mixture of a Mayan religion and Santeria and had beliefs that were also influenced by a scene from the film The Believers. You can’t make this stuff up. As a true crime fanatic, I enjoyed this piece. These drug dealing murderers loosely influenced the writing of the novel.
• Canciones de Amor Maldito: The Music of Perdita Durango – in this piece composer Simon Boswell not only discusses his work on the film, but also goes in depth into some of the creative processes employed on his other famous projects including Santa Sangre and Hardware. 
• Shooting Perdita Durango – a very brief interview with cinematographer Flavio Labiano.
• Two Trailers

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 5/5

Overall – 4.5/5

Perdita Durango is a wild ride that will satisfy fans of extreme cinema from the Nineties. This film is definitely not for everyone, so please take time to read at least part of the plot synopsis above. That said, this is one of the most unique films I have watched in the last year. I can fully understand why Severin decided to make this film its inaugural 4K UHD offering. As an adaptation of Barry Gifford’s novel, the film succeeds brilliantly, bringing out the best elements of the book and expanding upon them. As a dark satire of the strange relationship between America and Mexico, the film succeeds. As a truly insane road trip movie with some unforgettable moments, once again the film succeeds. It is a shame that the film distributors in 1997 never gave this film a chance to develop a following in the United States and made numerous cuts to the version released as Dance with the Devil in 1999. The Vera Cruz finale of the film in particular is one of the best sequences in the film to me, and I can not imagine why they removed it for the original American release. The acting in the film is top notch with great performances from Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, and James Gandolfini. For film lovers that are willing to watch a film with some seriously sinister main characters and without any apprehensions about its moral compass, this is a truly unique vision from director Alex de la Iglesia. Fans of Wild at Heart will definitely want to see this film and compare the two films for their differences in tone. I am glad that I read the book and watched the movie. I am thankful to Severin for taking the chance to bring the film to the 4K UHD format.