Main Cast: Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, Harley Cross, Aimee Graham, James Gandolfini
Release Year: 1997
Country: ES/MX/US
Run Time: 126 minutes
Plot
The title character of this Alex de la Iglesia film made her first appearance in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990) and was originally played by Isabella Rossellini. Rosie Perez takes over the role in this blend of black comedy, graphic sex and violence, voodoo, and weirdness. Perdita Durango is pure trash, a fact she establishes at the film's beginning. Her adventures begin when she hooks up with Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem), a sleek, black-clad, sexually adventurous practitioner of Santeria who routinely kills, robs banks, and steals corpses from graves for his cannibalistic blood-soaked rituals. Santos (Don Stroud) is a pedophile and a crime boss. He hires Romeo to steal a truck filled with human fetuses that are slated to be used for cosmetic experiments. Romeo accepts but feels he must make a human sacrifice before he goes. This bothers Perdita not a bit and she even picks out a pair of blonde teens for the ritual killing. The two crooks kidnap the kids, ritually feather them, sexually abuse them, and are preparing to kill them when Romeo's cheated partner shows up with policemen. The crooks and their prey manage to escape, but the scheme to commandeer the truck gets botched and an ensuing shootout between Santos' men and DEA agents goes wrong. Santos loses many men and swears revenge upon Romeo and Perdita, who continue on their journey with their two doomed victims. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
Serving as an interesting companion piece to David Lynch's hyper-charged, surrealistic epic Wild at Heart, Perdita Durango (also co-written by Wild at Heart scribe Barry Gifford) expands on some of the characters introduced in Lynch's film, and takes those characters on an equally kinetic and bizarre journey through the dark underworld of wild debauchery, reckless abandon, and Santeria. Though likely to polarize viewers who feel that similar studies in violence such as Natural Born Killers simply glorify the revolting acts they attempt to satirize, director Alex de la Iglesia's exploration in cultural isolation and constant sense of self-conscious irony makes it difficult to see as an endorsement of the acts it portrays. An excruciatingly exhausting barrage of stimulus and symbolism, shifting from cartoonishly hallucinogenic to all-too-real violence, Perdita Durango is embroidered throughout with De la Iglesia's trademark black humor, often forcing the viewer to cringe and laugh simultaneously. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Adolfo; Carlos Bardem - Reggie; Santiago Segura - Shorty Dee; Don Stroud - Santos; Alex Cox - Agent Doyle
Credit
Andrew Bernard - Art Director, Ana Solares - Art Director, Salvador Parra - Art Director, Marco Gomez - Associate Producer, Nicole Arbusto - Casting, Joy Dickson - Casting, Glenn Ralston - Costume Designer, Maria Estela Fernandez - Costume Designer, Jose Luis Escolar - First Assistant Director, Álex de la Iglesia - Director, Teresa Font - Editor, Max Rosenberg - Executive Producer, Pablo Barbachano - Executive Producer, Miguel Necoechea - Executive Producer, Fernando Bovaira - Executive Producer, Jose Luis Escolar - Line Producer, Simon Boswell - Composer (Music Score), Jose Luis Arrizabalaga - Production Designer, Arturo "Biaffra" Garcia - Production Designer, Flavio M. LaBiano - Cinematographer, Andrés Vicente Gómez - Producer, Helen Britten - Set Designer, Claudio "Pache" Contreras - Set Designer, L2 Entertainment - Special Effects, Salvador de la Fuente - Sound/Sound Designer, Juan Carlos Prieto - Sound/Sound Designer, Álex de la Iglesia - Screenwriter, Jorge Guerricaechevarría - Screenwriter, David Trueba - Screenwriter, Barry Gifford - Screenwriter, Barry Gifford - Book Author
