Perdita Durango (Dance with the Devil)
1997
Director- Álex de la Iglesia
From Spain /Mexico
Cast- Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, Aimee Graham, Harley
Cross, James Gandolfini, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Demián Bichir, Santiago Segura,
Those
familiar with Álex de la Iglesia’s work (Errementari, Witching & Bitching and Day of the Beast) will probably be surprised by this film. Though it does have
his usual dark humor, it ventures into territories foreign to those better
known films. If you didn’t know better you’d think it was an early Robert
Rodriquez film. You may also be familiar with the character of Perdita Durango
as Isabella Rossellini’s character from Wild
at Heart. Both stories are based on the works of Barry Gifford.
Perdita Durango (Rosie
Perez) is a free spirit who lives according to her own whims and easily gives
herself over to her passions whether it is sex or violence. She meets Romeo
(Javier Bardem), a criminal and self-styled
Santeria priest. He views his ceremonies as a kind of science that
provides him with good luck. And who knows, maybe they do. Several times in the
film, people aiming to do him harm meet with unfortunate (one might say
comical) accidents. His rituals seem more show than substance however. That is,
until Perdita ups his game and they decide to carry out a human sacrifice.
Romeo has been hired to smuggle a truckload of fetuses (you read that right)
from Mexico to Las Vegas, and he hopes the human sacrifice will bring him extra
luck.
They kidnap two American
teenagers (Aimee Graham and Harley Cross). They intend to eventually use them
for their human sacrifice. Until then, the kids serve as sexual playthings for
Romeo and Perdita. The kids eventually begin to undergo a kind of Stockholm
syndrome and Romeo and Perdita start to develop a soft side for them (not so
soft though that they are going to let them go).
Their
journey takes them through the American southwest and they are followed by a
persistent DEA agent (Gandolfini). Eventually the consequences of all of their
violence catch up with them but not before a string of bodies are left in their
wake.
Javier
Bardem would become famous (and win an Oscar)10 years later as the assassin in
No Country for Old Men. It’s interesting to see him still relatively early in
his career, even with the tragic haircut. James Gandolfini would play another
detective the very next year in the Satanic thriller, Fallen, with Denzel
Washington. He would then become famous as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos.
Rosie
Perez, on the other hand, was a little more seasoned actor when this film was
made and had already garnered critical praise for several roles, including an
Oscar nomination. Rosie is both sexy and dangerous in this film. You can never
tell what she will do or how she will react. It would be interesting to watch
this movie back to back with Wild at Heart and compare her performance to Isabella
Rossellini’s.
Dance
with the Devil is a multi-genre film; crime, horror, and dark comedy and it
moves back and forth fluidly. Considering that the main characters engage in
rape and murder, the film can’t be dismissed as mere escapist fun, yet the film
never quite becomes a completely serious story. It’s best to view it as Perdita
views herself. She does what she wants when she wants and if it doesn’t make
sense to anyone else then oh well.
There
are a few versions of the film. The unrated American version (Dance with the
Devil) is a few minutes longer (coming it at slightly over 2 hours) than the
regular version. The Spanish version, titled Perdita Durango, is a few minutes longer than the American unrated
version and has slightly more explicit sex and a little different ending
involving a death bed hallucination.
Fun fact- Harley Cross plays Martin Sheen’s son in The Believers. In that film he is kidnapped by a Santeria cult.
Fun fact #2- Old school music fans will appreciate the
appearance of the grandfather of shock rock, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in a
supporting role.
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