las brujas

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.