HBS Your mother would hate this film. At first glance, Perdita Durango is one of those films that are proof of the impending doom of civilisation as we know it. This film is violence for violence's sake, blood for blood's, and even if it's meant to be a comment on it, it's part of it all the same. Perez (Fearless) plays Perdita, a hellishly attractive half-Mexican, half-Texan vagabond who meets up with Romeo (Bardem from Live Flesh), a psycho high priest voodoo channeller. For the hell of it, they decide to go on a thrill-seeking holiday in the States which involves kidnapping a teenage couple, subjecting them to psycho-sexual cruelty which culminates in a voodoo ceremony where one of them is the sacrifice, and then hoofing it to Las Vegas where they steal a truckload of frozen foetuses for Romeo's mafia boss, thus shooting lots of people. Sound like your cup of tea? At second glance, and this only slowly dawns on you halfway through the movie (so don't walk out on it just yet), Perdita Durango is a film-noir, a send up of our own concept of controlled and civilised behaviour. In effect, it's a modern myth and will undoubtedly gain cult status for the door it leaves open for pontificating movie critics with more than 200 words to say about it. ---Lachlan Gilbert ------------------- Reviewed by The Wolf THERE comes a point with S&V when disgusting is no longer a joke. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez passed the puke barrier in "From Dusk Till Dawn". Spanish goremeister, Álex de la Iglesia, goes beyond. He treats torture as a turn on. Perdita (Rosie Perez) is a bullet-sized Mexican devilette, who hangs out with a grave-robbing, voodoo-chanting, bank-robbing maniac, called Romeo (Javier Bardem). Together they kidnap two white middle-class American kids (Harley Cross and Aimee Graham), handcuff, rape and abuse them in preparation for human sacrifice. At the same time, they drive a refridgerated truck, full of human foetuses, to Las Vegas for the Mob, while a bad tempered FBI agent (James Gandolfini) follows, fuming. Romeo dresses heavy metal. Perdita wears skimpy tank tops. Guns are phallic. Ditto cacti. Killing becomes so commonplace, screams from the teenagers have more shock value. It's all good fun for the late, late crowd. Except it's not. The gratutious violence sickens. The grandstand sex is faked. "Bonnie And Clyde Go Tex Mex"? In your nightmares. --------------------- In his English language debut, Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia has made one of the best films of the year. I just hope the rest of America gets a chance to see it. This is the second film from a novel (59 Degrees and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango) by meta-noir writer Barry Gifford. The first was David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" relating the story of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern). Two residents of the freak show we meet in that film are eccentric, brutal crime lord, Santos (J.E. Freeman) and a dangerous old acquaintance of Sailor's, Perdita Durango. Now channeled through Rosie Perez, we meet Perdita as a young woman who's traveled the nine circles of Hell and back. The latina is a long-time citizen of Gifford-land, a savage, bloody world beyond "noir" with no law but your own. Here, you take what you need and celebrate life for it can be taken from you at any moment. Every night Perdita dreams of a jaguar that caresses her and sleeps by her side. One day in Mexico, the jaguar takes the form of Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem), a man with a spark in his eyes, love in his heart, and blood everywhere. Any other film, he'd be the villian, but it's hard not to like a guy who has Screamin' Jay Hawkins for a sidekick. Perdita's instantly smitten. He calls himself a scientist, but his discipline is Santeria, an ancient religion that grants him luck and power in exchange for blood sacrifice. Perdita doesn't buy it, but she's just crazy enough to keep up with him. Romeo is soon hired by kingpin Santos (Don Stroud) to use his powers to drive a truck across the Mexican border to Las Vegas. The refrigerated truck is loaded with human foetuses destined for a U.S. cosmetics company for use in facial cremes. When Romeo plans a ceremony before the job, Perdita jokingly convinces him not only to use a live human sacrifice, but to use a "gringo". The pair cross the border to an Arizona part town, and take blonder than blonde college students Duane (Harley Cross) and Estelle (Amiee Graham, Heather's sister). The young couple are soon initiated into this dark world. Then everything gets really weird. California writer Gifford is the sort of high priest of "noir" fiction who works the conventions into the next level. A dark, cynical world begets a savage, alien one, where David Lynch may not have had a total affinity for the material to create a complete world. Maybe he just hasn't seen enough Sam Peckinpah movies. Former Almodovar protege De la Iglesia has, giving him the edge in Gifford's road adventures of the soul. The result is often like Alejandro Jodorowky directing "The Wild Bunch". One amusing connection to "Wild at Heart" is that the earlier film had a much more violent, darker unrated cut play at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palm d'Or. This screening of "Perdita Durango" used last year's Cannes screening print, and it's in no danger of making an "R" rating any time soon. One Santeria ceremony alone prevents that, not to mention all the sweaty, physical sex. The cast is excellent, though, and Perez finally has a part to unleash her primal energy, and she's never been better. I'm still hoping this film will see an American release this year, in whatever form. As the director's 1995 "The Day of the Beast" was just released, there's a solid chance. This country's cinema can always use a little shaking up, and we can't let America's idea of an edgy, transgressive film be "8MM".