Perdita Durango

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perdita Durango
Perdita Durango
Directed by	Alex de la Iglesia
Produced by	Andrés Vicente Gómez
Written by	Barry Gifford David Trueba Jorge Guerricaechevarría Alex de la Iglesia
Starring	Rosie Perez Javier Bardem James Gandolfini Screamin' Jay Hawkins Aimee Graham Harley Cross Alex Cox
Music by	Simon Boswell
Cinematography	Flavio Martínez Labiano
Editing by	Teresa Font
Release date(s)	1997
Running time	126 min
Language	English Spanish
IMDb profile

Based on Barry Gifford's novel 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango, Perdita Durango is a cross between the crime and horror genres. Perdita (Rosie Perez) is a tough, no-nonsense lady clad in a Tura Satana-style black outfit. She meets Romeo (Javier Bardem), a maniacal criminal who also happens to be an even more maniacal witch doctor. The couple cross the border into Mexico, become lovers and partners in crime as they kidnap a white-bread teenage couple. Along the way they also hijack a truckload of human fetuses and try to evade a determined Drug Enforcement Agency officer (James Gandolfini). The character of Perdita Durango appeared previously in David Lynch's movie Wild at Heart, played by Isabella Rossellini.

The film is at its most horrific in the scenes where Romeo practices voodoo. In one ritualistic scene, he drenches himself in blood and smothers his face in a bag of cocaine. He then hacks limbs off of a corpse, tears out its heart and writhes around on the ground, channeling multitudes of demons. De La Iglesia contrasts these scenes with gallows humour. Romeo may be a vicious killer but he also loves the music of Herb Alpert. There is a scene where he and Perdita happily groove to the strains of The Dating Game theme. Gandolfini's character speaks with a weasely lisp and has the misfortune of being repeatedly hit by fast moving vehicles, not unlike a live-action Wile E. Coyote.

Perdita Durango is a curious oddity in De La Iglesia's oeuvre. It is his most overt attempt to crack the North American market (where he has only a small but dedicated following) with his first English-speaking film and a cast of recognizable actors like Rosie Perez, James Gandolfini and Javier Bardem. This alienated his Spanish fans who felt that he had sold out, while his penchant for graphic sex and violence scared off potential distributors and mainstream audiences in North America, sending the movie direct to video. This film is a blend of genres (crime, horror, comedy, road trip) with an eclectic cast that features his regular favourites (Santiago Segura) and colourful character actors (Screamin' Jay Hawkins).

[edit] Various Versions

The title was changed to Dance with the Devil in the United States.

The original Spanish version runs 10 minutes longer and features more sex and violence and ended with some characters digitally morphing into the scene finale from Vera Cruz (film).

It is available on VHS/DVD in two versions: the edited 115 min. R-rated version and a 121 min. unrated version. Both of these are shorter than the Spanish version.