Damn Bastard
Imaldito Bastardo!
Datura Films
Web: http://www.malditobastardo.net
Spanish
with English and French Subtitles
We
have all heard the strange and wonderful tales told around a fireplace, especially
those which have been told and told again until they have reached truly mythic
proportions.
Fonsiño
was bored so his grandfather decided to tell him a tale; and what a tale it is!
It is the type of saga suited to a cold night when the dark is encroaching on
the doorstep and you need a good scare. It is a story filled with sex, death
and madness, lots and lots of madness. When Fonsiño seems to doubt the veracity
of his grandfather recollections, his grandmother takes over and the tale veers
into true insanity. There are mechanical edible animals who wander the forest
and live for hundreds of years, a giant Swiss straw man, a plush deity called
Father Bear who is the second son of God and not to forget Christian 1.0 the
robot !
The
story focuses on Dr Natalio who runs a dilapidated hospital . It is packed with
semi naked subjects whom he has injected with rabies, shocked, lobotomized and
experimented on. He abuses everyone around him and beats his nurse. Under
pressure she accidently injects a patient with insulin and kills him and then
injects the diabetic doctor with the fatal infection he has been working on.
At
the same time we are treated to the tale of a simple family who live in the
forest. Alvarito is a man-child who likes to blow things up, he is dominated by
his fearsome and violent mother Florentina. Florentina is a visionary who has
an experience with God and has come to believe that Father Bear (a plush toy)
is the second son of the divine ! She keeps him in a shrine made of a smashed
television and bits and pieces she has found in the forest. She teaches
Alvarito the facts of life such as do not believe in solidarity and progress,
be vary of all foreigners and endure pain at all costs.
Natalios
and Alvaritos lives intersect when the doctor finds the solution to his
infection in an old alchemical tome. He has forty eight hours to find a
simpleton and extract their bodily fluids to make a cure. He sends a telegram
to Florentina offering Alvarito a job and things go downhill from there.
There
are rapes, sodomy, zombies, murders and lots more. This is a bizarre low budget
cult film which makes up for its obviously limited budget with sheer exuberance
and creativity. Sure, at times, the acting is a bit uneven and the plot seems a
bit insane, but its surreal nature is what really gets you in.
The
monsters are outrageous from the Swiss straw man who is clearly a guy covered
in bags of straw to a very cool robot and a strange tree. It is all so odd it
ends up like a mad dark fairy tale for adults.
It
has a great sense of humour and lots of ridiculous sub plots such as the
unnamed pervert in the forest who likes to collect and make love to men’s
jackets !
Imaldito
Bastardo is going to end up being a cult classic; it is so manic, frenetic and
just plain bizarre that you will want to watch it a few times. You will end up
shocked, amazed, amused and above all, entertained.
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This
review will appear in Volume 2 No.5
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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