it
was not a best picture material but certainly an entertaining piece. las brujas
de zugarramurdi (witching and bitching) was a crazy romp of “actor” thieves and
“feminist” witches. in between, alex de la iglesia injected themes of
father-son relationship, modern-day problems of married couples, of course the
witches, plus roadtrip… all woven into a zany horror-comedy feature film, which
ended with a big (literally) wallop of madness.
garbed
as street performers, jose and tony carefully planned a bank heist. forgetting
that he's supposed to take care of his son, he brought manuel and actually
involved him in the robbery. being chased by the police, they then headed up
north to spain's border with france. along the way, they took the taxi driver
as hostage. the group then reached a small town called zugarramurdi, a town
believed to be the birthplace of witches in spain. they were captured, tied and
tortured, as part of the occult ceremony honouring "the mother" of
all witches. the men will be served as dinner's main course while a virgin,
jose's son, will be offered as
sacrifice.
audience
won't have any idea on what was going to happen. the taxi driver got tortured
over and over, the police officers also became part of the hostages to be
offered and consumed and even silvia, jose's estranged wife, got bewitched and
joined the throng of witches out to destroy men. there was even a subplot with
eva, the young witch, falling in love with jose. it was irreverent and a true rollercoaster
ride of dark and contemporary such as lines like "my daughter loves me so
much, she put my picture on the wall next to justin bieber." de la iglesia
was able to put together a crazed, light-hearted feature, packed with comedy
and action sequences. great cast especially hugo silva, mario casas, carolina bang,
carmen maura and terele pavez.
some
might say that it got out of control in the end when the big witch (ogre-type with gigantic boobs), the mother
of all witches, was introduced as part of the climax of the movie. eva even fought
with her mother, graciana, who was finally vanquished. but it was just the
icing used to top the craziness of the movie. after all, the aim was to mock
the existing take of some contemporary feminists to avenge what they call
inequality. this was already indicated with the great credit sequence where women
of different stature was shown and interesting and funny juxtapositions of
women such as margaret thatcher (former UK prime minister) and myra hindley
(notorious killer). it was a thrilling and fun ride.
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