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Directed by Alex de la Iglesia Cast : Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, Harley Cross, Aimee Graham, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Santiago Segura, Alex Cox, Don Stroud. 1996 |
Perdita and Romeo on the road.
Perdita and Romeo get their guns.
Rosie Perez as Perdita Durango.
Shorty Dee and Romeo steal bodies from the cemetery.
Set used for the Santero and Black masses.
Perdita Durango is an explosive cocktail of humour, love, sex and action. the main characters are a superwoman without scruples, Perdita Durango, and an attractive assassin, Romeo Dolorosa. After kidnapping a rich teenage couple, the two characters start a journey without return along the wildest side of the American dream, ready to carry out the assignment of a Mafia lord: to carry a load of fetuses from the Mexican frontier to Las Vegas.
Perdita Durango is a young and dangerous woman. Every night she dreams about a jaguar licking her naked body and sleeps next to her. Dark and sexy, she lives to the extreme and drags along with a certain pride a past of blood and strange passions.
Romeo Dolorosa is a tough guy. Every day he relives some anecdotes of her tropical youth. Dark, sensual and very cocky he robs banks and traffics with illegal substances and corpses, leaving a trail of santero rituals and fantastic legends.
The destinies of Perdita and Romeo join together one day. Together, beautiful and in love assault places on both sides of the American and Mexican frontiers, multiplying enemies and crimes.
With their minds set up to become the most feared runaways of the land, Perdita and Romeo kidnap a couple of North American teenagers, Estelle and Duane, for their own whim. Their intention is to kill them brutally in a secret ceremony. At the same time, the Mafia lord Marcello "Mad Eyes" Santos, using as mediator Romeo's cousin, Reggie San Pedro, hires them to drive a truck loaded with fetuses from the Mexican frontier to Las Vegas.
From that moment, Perdita, Romeo, Estelle and Duane start a frantic journey on the wildest side of the American dream; a journey that works for everybody to resolve their differences mixing sex, cigarettes and confidences in dangerous doses.
Meanwhile, many peculiar characters run after them or are crushed by them.
Production notes: Alex de la Iglesia has been away from Bilbao, his home, for months and has not had time to feel homesick. " It was fucked up in the beginning. The project sounded a bit crap. I read the novel and it seemed not too cinematographic, until I discovered the Trueba's script. I then saw the film. The only thing that set me back is the road movie with psychopath theme: very topical". On the move between Mexico and the US, Alex is fascinated with the differences between the countries: "It's wild! Only when you are there you really feel Perdita Durango. It is then you discover that the Romeo Dolorosa's snake skin boots are not a script joke, people are really like that over there. And then is the religious topic, an important detail, not like in Spain, where the profane feeling has taken over everything". It may be because of that that De la Iglesia yells "Me cago en Dios! (Fucking God!) when some extra looks straight at the camera in an action sequence. Taken by the tex mex aesthetics, Alex threats: "I don't have to be good, morally good. I do not intend to preach and I haven't signed for Disney. I don't believe in people is charming and I like Cruella de Ville. Perdita Durango will be a hard but humorous film!".
Like Hollywood, Mexico is a mental state. Life and death are here part of a game of survival where the traveler seems himself being pushed in by the violence experiences he encounters. This has moved Alex de la Iglesia to turn Barry Gifford's novel, Perdita Durango into a mystical-charro thriller full of Mexican magic. It is only here that people live like Perdita ("I also had a sister. Her name was Juana. She had two daughters. She had a fight with her husband and he shot her dead. He then shot the girls on the head and shot himself afterwards") and Romeo ("My grandmother is a Caribbean witch , my father was a Spanish gentleman and my ranch is in Mexico") always living to the limit, with the intensity of those who know how much time they have left in the world, because in Mexico life has no price. It is given as easy as it's taken away.
The whole mystical mistery of Mexico is concentrated in the character of Romeo Dolorosa. The presence of Javier Bardem has had a major influence on the script. Romeo is a sadistic man educated in santery: "I was ten years old when they gave me the necklaces. One per divinity. They threw my old clothes in the sea. Since then the necklaces protect me from evil... The saint is born from the dead: without death there is no saintity".
Santery is such a big thing in Mexico that even the set had to be blessed by a santero. "It will be a purifying fire, the santero has said". Many films shot in Mexico go under the proceedings of cleaning the set by means of santery. In Perdita Durango this was almost a necessity. Alex de la Iglesia confessed: "After the accident we all went paranoid. I do not believe in santery, but I respect the people who practise it. Anyway, after El Dia de la Bestia, The Day of the Beast, I admit I am more sensitive to the subject". Even Rosie Perez, whose sister knows about these rituals, demanded by contract no to take part in any scenes of santery or black mass.
Alex de la Iglesia sorrounded by props from the film.
Javier Bardem as Romeo Dolorosa.
Santiago Segura as Shorty Dee.
With only two films and a short in his cinematographic history, Alex de la Iglesia (Bilbao, 1965) has become the Spanish cinema director with the biggest international projection of his generation. His second film, El Dia de la Bestia, The Day of the Beast, got 6 Goya Awards and won awards at the Gerardmer, Venice, Toronto, Sitges and Brussels film festivals. Alex draws comics, has edited fanzines and directed important Rol games. Perdita Durango is his third film, and the second produced by Andres Vicente Gomez after the success of The Day of the Beast.
Rosie Perez: "No tits, no butt no photos". She has got the biggest trailer, after all she is a Hollywood star. Rosie Perez signed full of demands for the producer. She has an agent and publicist who check the takes that can be done, the photos that allowed for the film's publicity shots, of the interviews she approves. Everything is under a tight control which has created many tensions in the shot, to the point that Alex de la Iglesia calls her the "Rosie Perez Corporation". She does not allow anybody in the set while they shoot a sex scene and no photos can be taken on set. The Spanish film magazine Cinemania had an encounter with her at one of the production closure parties celebrated in the Salon Mexico before going to Las Vegas to join the American crew. Eating nachos and drinking margaritas, the actress gets rid of her star status and turns more Latino. It is obvious that, deep inside, what she wants to do is dance, laugh with the people and even cry like everybody else when saying good-bye. "Some people told me that they thought I was a bit bitchy" confesses feeling a bit guilty. "Have you seen the rushes? I haven't I never do because I am scared I will notice something I don't like and I will repeat it over and over. But I want to know what I look like, though!!". Rosie seems pleased with Alex's sense of humour. "It is very important to laugh at the great things that happen here, and he does. If it was not that way, the film would be too violent, too hard". Relaxed, and dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, Rosie comments that she would never live in L.A. because "I feel free in New York. I live in Brooklyn, surrounded by friends who still criticise me if I do something wrong. I like to have my feet on the ground". She once went to Barcelona "but they made fun of me because my Puertorican accent made them laugh. I had such a horrible time that I only stayed one day. Alex has also criticised me for speaking that way, but it's different".
Javier Bardem: Pure dynamite. According to Alex de la Iglesia he is a "runaway force". To Santiago Segura he is "pure dynamite". But Javier Bardem, who suffered burnings of second degree during the shooting of an explosion (he also broke his hand in the shooting of Extasis, Ecstasy) this latest expression must be painful. "The worst thing was the pain I was feeling inside. Every time I got to the set I remembered hell, the fire. I am getting back together now and I admit I was a bit edgy with people after the accident". Romeo is a very intriguing guy, very close to the evil forces, and he is Mexican!". In the beginning I looked at the character as if he was a cartoon character, an imitation of what I believed was Mexican. Being Mexican is not just saying "pendejo". His habitat, his violence, his faith, everything is beyond me and my world". With an impressive physique, enhanced by hair extensions and and necklaces and santero amulets, Javier Bardem walks with a certain security of being safe, at least from everybody else.
Santiago Segura: 108 kilos of humour. He has always worked with Alex since Accion Mutante. "Some people even gets us confused! But I am not his fetiche actor, just a friend" Santiago comments with certain humour. In Mexico they have not seen his short films or his TV program. For them, Santiago Segura is like a Martian. They laugh with him and his comments. At 2000 meters of height, when his 108 kilos become a sweaty mass, his sense of humour keeps intact. "It is now when you repeat a run ten times and the director says that nice thing: 'run like you did before, God damn it!' He tries to seduce the crew by saying: "They offered me a supporting role in The Mask of Zorro, with Antonio Banderas, but that would take place in January and that is when I should be starting the shooting of Torrente, el Brazo Tonto de la Ley, Torrente, the Stupid Arm of the Law, so I will not make it".
Perdita Durango Storyboards.
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Genre: Length: 104 minutes Format: 1,85:1 Rated: 13 |
Language: Spanish Subtitles:
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Drama