Perdita Durango

Perdita Durango (1997) is a fascinating oddity in the filmography of Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia. It was his attempt at breaking into the North American market with a cast that featured recognizable actors like Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem and James Gandolfini. Unfortunately, De La Iglesia’s film came out before Bardem became known to audiences here and two years before Gandolfini hit it big with The Sopranos. As a result, Perdita Durango was trimmed by ten minutes and dumped into direct-to-video hell with the generic title Dance with the Devil. Even in this neutered form, De La Igleisia’s film is a gonzo potpourri of wild sex, crazed violence and pitch black humor. In other words, the stuff that instant cult films are made of.

Based on Barry Gifford’s novel 59 Degrees and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango, De La Iglesia’s film is a spin-off, of sorts, of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) – also an adaptation of one of Gifford’s novels – by focusing on one of the minor characters featured in that film (and played by Isabella Rossellini). Perdita (Perez) is a tough, no-nonsense lady clad in a Tura Satana-style black outfit. She meets Romeo Dolorosa (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 couple of teens – Duane (Harley Cross) and Estelle (Aimee Graham) and transport a truckload of human fetuses to Las Vegas while trying to evade determined Drug Enforcement Agency officer Woody Dumas (Gandolfini).

The opening scene, where a schlubby guy tries to pick up Perdita at an airport, tells us all we need to know about her – she’s smart, tough and more than capable of handling herself, sending the hapless guy scurrying with a few choice words. It’s a juicy role that Rosie Perez sinks her teeth into, immersing herself fully. She shows a wide range of emotions as her character is more than an amoral criminal, she also conveys a vulnerability – albeit fleeting – that gives her a bit more depth than one would expect from this kind of a film.

Romeo is an impulsive mad man as evident in a flashback where he forces a busty bank teller to expose her naked breast while he’s robbing the bank! He then double-crosses his partner, hitting him with the getaway vehicle. Much like Perez, Javier Bardem commits fully to the role with scary intensity. Romeo is a force of nature that follows his own beliefs that are a funky fusion of a love for cinema and a twisted belief in Santeria.

James Gandolfini portrays Woody as a slightly sleazy, slightly seedy character that speaks with a slightly weasely lisp and has the misfortune of being repeatedly hit by fast moving vehicles, not unlike a live-action Wile E. Coyote. He also seems to be mildly fixated on Ava Gardner, at one point remarking how much he likes her lips. He’s determined to bring down Romeo for his outstanding drug offenses and will let nothing get in his way. It becomes a point of pride for him. Gandolfini steals every scene he’s in with his I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude and that is saying something in a film that features larger than life characters played by Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

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. There is an unpredictable energy to the scene that makes it scary and thrilling. De la Iglesia contrasts these scenes with gallows humour. Romeo may be a vicious killer but he also loves the music of Herb Albert. There is a hilarious moment where he and Perdita happily groove to the strains of The Dating Game theme.

From the grotesque mutants who threaten Earth in Accion Mutante (1993) to the graphic voodoo practices in Perdita Durango, horrific, often bizarre, imagery has always been prominent in Alex de la Iglesia’s movies. Like his cinematic contemporaries — Mexico’s Guillermo del Toro and France’s Christophe Gans — De la Iglesia impishly mixes a variety of genres in his films:

“I like to play with genres and construct my own movies...What I am trying to do is inject poison into these genres. In a happy comedy I like to introduce poison and make the movie freaky and weird, with a tasteless sense of humor.”

It is no surprise that, like Del Toro and Gans, De la Iglesia comes from a comic book/fanzine background that informs all of his work. There is something of the film geek in all of three filmmakers that results in a desire to include show-stopping spectacle set pieces in their movies and to quote other films in their own work, fueled by an obsession with American culture.

El Dia de la bestia was a huge hit in its native country, earning six Goya Awards (Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards), and breaking box office records. Producer Andres Vicente Gomez saw the movie and wanted De la Iglesia to direct Perdita Durango. Gomez felt that De la Iglesia’s sensibilities were better suited for the project than current director, Bigas Luna. With pre-production already underway, De la Iglesia came aboard and molded the material to fit his preoccupations.

For all of its inspired lunacy, Perdita Durango is not without its poignant moments, like when Romeo waxes nostalgic about seeing Vera Cruz (1954) at an impressionable age and how the fate of Burt Lancaster’s character resonated with him. Like with that film, there is a certain sense of fatalism in Perdita Durango as Romeo knows he’s going to die but goes through with one last job anyway and De La Iglesia literally has him become Lancaster’s character, mimicking the showdown in Vera Cruz with the one between Romeo and his cousin Reggie (Carlos Bardem). Perdita Durango ends on a deliciously subversive note as the titular character walks through a gaudy Vegas casino with “Winner” signs flashing all around her – epitomizing the American dream – but she’s lost everything.

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 probably felt he had sold out, while his perchance for graphic sex and violence scared off potential distributors and mainstream audiences in North America, sending the film direct to video. This reaction is unfortunate because Perdita Durango is De la Iglesia’s most successful effort: a perfect mix of the ridiculous and the epic, with the right blend of genres (crime, horror, comedy, road trip) and a wonderfully eclectic cast that features his regular favorites (Santiago Segura) and colorful character actors (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins).

Untamed Heart

At first glance, Untamed Heart (1993) seems like nothing more than your standard chick flick destined for regular rotation on the Lifetime Channel. And to be fair, there are definitely elements of that much-maligned subgenre but what redeems the film is Marisa Tomei who delivers a wonderful performance that transcends the sometimes cliché-ridden story. There is also actor-director Tony Bill’s excellent casting against type of Christian Slater who, for a rare moment in time, dropped his cool guy shtick to play a shy, socially awkward character. Bill gets solid performances out of his entire cast, which almost makes you forget the predictable beats of the story. The end result is a bittersweet holiday treat.

As a child, Adam lived in an orphanage run by nuns. He was the recipient of a heart transplant and was fed a fairy tale story that he was given a baboon’s heart thanks to the heroic efforts of his adventurer father. A sickly boy, he (Christian Slater) grew up to be reserved bus boy at a local Minneapolis diner. Untamed Heart takes us back to the early 1990s as soon as we hear the DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.” Caroline (Marisa Tomei) is a plucky waitress at the same diner. She is unlucky in love and right from her first scene, where she’s dumped by her boyfriend (that he would reject someone that looks like Tomei strains credibility but I digress) right before Christmas no less, we are rooting for her. This is because Tomei comes across as instantly sympathetic. Breaking her heart is like kicking a puppy fer Chrissakes!

Caroline commiserates with her best friend and fellow waitress Cindy (Rosie Perez), the sassy and cynical counterpoint to her co-worker. Tony Bill does an excellent job of establishing the diner and the colorful characters that populate it in only a few minutes. His camera moves around just enough so we get a sense of the layout of the place and then juxtaposes it with the people that work there to create a warm, inviting place. The cozy atmosphere of the diner is created with the help of Christmas lights and music, like the Cowboy Junkies’ dreamy cover of “Blue Moon.” The song is used to great effect in a shot where both Caroline and Adam are isolated in the same frame together. She is on one side, sitting by herself, and he’s on the other side, sweeping up the floor. This isn’t some sterile set located on a soundstage but a place that looks lived in and that has probably existed for many years. Set during the holiday season, Bill really conveys a sense of place – not just the diner but also the many establishing shots of a cold, snowy Minneapolis that sets the right atmospheric tone.

We see what a kind, nurturing person Caroline is when she tends to a nasty cut on Adam’s hand. She is oblivious to the intense, longing looks he gives her while she fixes him up. The way Christian Slater plays this scene is quite something. He doesn’t say anything to her (until the very end of the scene when she’s left and he says a quiet, “Thanks.”) but the actor conveys everything through his expressive eyes. Caroline and Adam develop a special bond when, one night, he rescues here from two guys (a pre-Sex and the City Willie Garson and Homicide: Life on the Street’s Kyle Secor) from attacking and trying to rape her.

Bill does a nice job of gradually developing the romance between Caroline and Adam. It is a slow burn that is accelerated by her attack. Afterwards, they have now shared something intensely personal and maybe for the first time she really notices him. Caroline is obviously moved by his selfless act and one gets the impression that he’s the first guy to look out for her, to be there for her when she needed it and not ask for anything in return. It is these scenes of their budding romance where the film is at its very best. We have become emotionally invested in Caroline and Adam and care about what happens to them.

Marisa Tomei is so good in this film. Fresh from her Academy Award-winning turn in My Cousin Vinny (1992) (?!), she plays a much more realistic character. Caroline is a bit of mess (as she says at one point, “My life is like watching the Three Stooges in Spanish.”). She has lousy taste in men and just wants to be loved by someone. Her chatty behavior is contrasted with Adam’s near-mute conduct but once they get involved she gradually gets him to open up. Tomei conveys a touching vulnerability that is quite endearing. The haunted look she adopts after her attack is heartbreaking. Most importantly, she has fantastic chemistry with Christian Slater, which is absolutely vital for a film like this. Their burgeoning romance is completely believable.

Untamed Heart is easily the best performance of Slater’s career. He showed that he could dial everything down and deliver a surprisingly minimalist performance. Freed from pages of dialogue, he has to rely more on his body language and his eyes to convey what Adam is feeling. Even when he does speak it is simply and directly. I’d love to know what Bill saw in Slater’s past performances that inspired him to cast the young actor as Adam. He even looks and acts differently with long, unkempt, unwashed hair and an introverted vibe in the way he acts. Adam avoids contact with people whenever possible. He hinted at this kind of character with the shy side of his protagonist in Pump Up the Volume (1990) but nothing to the extent that we see on display in Untamed Heart. Like Tomei, he also conveys an astonishing vulnerability.

Bill manages to tone down the usually manic, motor-mouthed Rosie Perez but without completely neutralizing her energy. She still gets some good zingers in there, like when she tells her nagging boss, who always complains that her breaks are too long, “You are like wet sand in my underwear.” (his reaction is priceless, by the way)

It’s too bad that once Caroline and Adam become a couple Untamed Heart loses its way a bit and veers dangerously close to disease-of-the-week made-for-T.V. territory – something that we’ve seen a million times. Sadly, the film shifts gears into a doomed romance storyline as Adam’s medical condition threatens his romance with Caroline. We get the standard relationship montage where we see the happy couple buy a car together, go for walks with his dog and so on. This culminates in a cheesy scene where they attend a hockey game and Adam even plucks a stray puck from the air for Caroline. It’s something I could have done without but it really is the odd misstep in an otherwise engaging film. Slater and Tomei do the best they can with what they’re given. However, as their romance deepens, the looks of unconditional love they convey to one another seems so genuine and real. Again, it’s all in the eyes.

Tony Bill was looking for unknown talent for a potential project and asked an agent at William Morris to send over some screenplays done by new writers. The script for Untamed Heart had originally been submitted as a writer’s sample. Bill showed it to producer Helen Bartlett who was moved by its theme of “having someone, somebody you never would have expected, come into your life and really transform you, change you.” Two weeks from Tom Sierchio handing the script for Untamed Heart to his agent, Bill optioned it and MGM agreed to make it.

Bill cast Marisa Tomei based on her audition for his earlier film, Five Corners (1987). She was too young for that film but he had kept track of her career over the years. Tomei found herself drawn to this “very warm story.” In order to perfect a regional accent, she chose a driver from the area who ended up acting as a dialogue coach. Once she had the accent down, she spoke with it on and off the set. When Christian Slater was first offered the part of Adam, he had his doubts and needed to be convinced to do it. He was scared of the role because it was so different from anything he had done before. As he said, “this one was a very internal performance, and at first I wasn’t really sure if I understood that.”

The film was originally set in New Jersey but for logistical reasons the producers could not shoot there and so they began to look for a city that could double for the Garden State. As luck would have it the filmmakers were scouting locations in Minneapolis and realized that it was “architecturally interesting.” They decided to actually set the film in the city as opposed to having it double for New Jersey. The production went on to cast 35 of the film’s 40 roles from the local acting community and utilize an almost completely local crew.

Untamed Heart received generally positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert wrote that the film was "kind of sweet and kind of goofy, and works because its heart is in the right place.” The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson grudgingly admitted that it was “hopelessly syrupy, preposterous and more than a little bit lame, but, still, somehow it got to me.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B-“ rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Tomei's performance: "With her flashing dark eyes and libidinous overbite, Tomei is adorable — she looks like a flirtatious bunny rabbit — but what's astonishing is the range of expression that passes over those delectable features.” Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers wrote, “The Rain Man-Dying Young elements in Tom Sierchio's script are pitfalls that Slater dodges with a wonderfully appealing performance. His love scenes with the dazzling Tomei have an uncommon delicacy.” In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane praised Tomei for bringing "startling high spirits to a dullish role. She snatches moments of happiness out of the air and shares them out to anyone who’s around.” However, in his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby felt that the film was “to the mind what freshly discarded chewing gum is to the sole of a shoe: an irritant that slows movement without any real danger of stopping it.”

It has been said about another Tony Bill film, My Bodyguard (1980), that, “it’s a nice, sweet movie, which I mean in the best possible way, with a surprising amount of depth found in its simple story." These words could so easily apply to Untamed Heart. By the film’s end one really feels like you’ve gone on a journey with these characters, especially Caroline who’s changed dramatically from where we saw her at the beginning. She’s gone from an emotional doormat when it comes to relationships to having experienced true love – to give of one’s self and to be there for someone else in return.


SOURCES

Salem, Rob. “Slater Digs Deep for Shy-Guy Role.” Toronto Star. February 12, 1993.

Untamed Heart Production Notes. MGM. 1993.