The witches of Zugarramurdi

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Movie
German title The witches of Zugarramurdi
Original title Las brujas de Zugarramurdi
Country of production Spain
France
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2013
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Álex de la Iglesia
script Álex de la Iglesia
Jorge Guerricaechevarría
production Enrique Cerezo
Franck Ribière
music Joan Valent
camera Kiko de la Rica
cut Pablo Blanco
occupation

The Witches of Zugarramurdi is a turbulent Spanish-French horror film comedy from 2013 with Carmen Maura in one of the leading roles as the witch director in a haunted house, which is unusually elaborate in terms of equipment and special effects .

action

The setting is the north of Spain. The divorced father José and his buddy Toni, a womanizer as he is in the book, have no paid work and are therefore chronically short of money. The friends absolutely want to change this situation, and so the two, disguised as street artists, plan a robbery on a pawn shop , where they hope to steal plenty of gold. Unfortunately, José's little son Sergio is also there. This could not be prevented, as today is the visiting day negotiated with José's ex-wife Silvia during the divorce war. In addition, José Sergio has promised to visit Disneyland Paris with him once . The robbery on the pawnbroker succeeds, and of all things a taxi is hijacked as an escape vehicle, in which, to make matters worse, a passenger is already sitting, who is now being dragged along against his will, locked in the trunk. But the amateurishly prepared break has brought two somewhat dumb police officers on the scene as well as José's ex Silvia, who heard pistol shots in the background during a phone call with José. The three of them set off independently of each other to see what's going on.

Meanwhile, José and Toni's troops have arrived shortly before the border with France, their escape destination. They make a short stop in the small town of Zugarramurdi. In the small town with a sad past of brutal “witches” burning around 400 years ago, they get caught up in an eloquent group of man-hating witches. These are led by Graciana Barrenetxea, whose mother Maritxu and daughter Eva are also there. This three-generation household, residing in what turns out to be a very enchanted mansion, has nothing good in mind with the newcomers, because the men should serve as a culinary delight for an upcoming feast or become victims of a ritual. When the kidnapped person realizes that they have ended up in the devil's kitchen, they run away immediately, until in the middle of the escape drive in the taxi José notices that he has left the booty from the heist in the witch's castle. The kidnapped taxi passenger is first invited out, then invited again, and at ape pace it goes back to the witches. They are delighted that their food has returned on wheels and this time they are careful to ensure that the men cannot escape again.

Little Sergio seems rescued for the time being, but old Maritxu later catches him again. They are all supposed to be sacrificed according to an ancient ritual. Soon Silvia and the two police inspectors arrived in Zugarramurdi, and the situation is getting more and more chaotic. The three enter the witch's house and, when they reach the roof, see from above how a festive banquet is taking place for the residents. The roof does not support the three, however, and Silvia and the two policemen Pacheco and Calvo crash into the depths and land in the middle of the banquet table. Now the devil is loose. While José, Toni and taxi driver Manuel are able to flee in the resulting chaos, the three falling newcomers are immediately taken into custody by the witches. Two of the three escaped are collected again by the witches who have magical powers - they can fly and run along the wall as well as the ceiling - while José manages to escape the cannibal witch mob thanks to the help of the pretty young witch Eva .

Eva fell in love with José immediately after arriving and now demands that, as the price of his rescue, flee with her immediately from the witch's paradise. But he doesn't want to pile up without his buddy Toni and certainly not without Sergio. That, in turn, immediately enrags Eva, and she flings him across the whole hall. He ends up in an underground room, where he comes across Luis Miguel, called "Luismi" for short, who has been chained up here for years. After he has freed the poor wretch, José leads José to the ritual room, where little Sergio is to be held in preparation for his sacrifice. Instead, Luismi and José meet Toni, Manuel and the two policemen Pacheco and Calvo, who are about to be roasted until they are crispy brown on a campfire. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge, fat, wobbly creature arises, which is supposed to prove to be the goddess of all witches. In her insatiable hunger she quickly devours little Sergio first. But he survives this ritual unscathed and is celebrated by the witches as the new leader against human civilization and patriarchy. With Eva's help, José lets the flabby witch goddess collapse and grabs his son. Together with his cronies and Eva, they escape this witch's kitchen.

Graciana and the other witches are thought to be dead, as no one should have survived this chaos in the witch's castle with the sagging witch goddess. Actually. Because this turns out to be a mistake. A few months later: While José and Eva got married and Sergio is allowed to show off the magical talents he had learned from Eva in a school performance, the surviving Silvia, Graciana and Maritxu can be seen in the final scene just waiting for strife between Eva and José to develop Developing things in favor of witches again.

Production Notes and Publications

The Witches of Zugarramurdi was created in 2012 and premiered in Spain on September 27, 2013. The film did not come to cinemas in Germany and was released on DVD in 2014. The TV broadcast (OmU) took place on November 6, 2015 on arte . A German dubbed version was broadcast on tele 5 on June 28, 2018.

The production costs amounted to around 6 million euros, the worldwide income was 8,136,011 euros.

Trivia

Carolina Bang , who plays the young witch Eva, has been married to the director of this film, Álex de la Iglesia , since June 2014 .

Historical background

Zugarramurdi , a real place in the Spanish province of Navarra , actually has a "witch's past". In 1610, 39 women accused of witchcraft were tried here. Twelve of them were sentenced to death at the stake in Logroño . Every August this tragic event is commemorated with traditional dances and concerts of Celtic and Basque music in the prehistoric caves.

Awards

The film received a wealth of Spanish awards and nominations in 2014. Goyas went to this film in a total of eight categories . Were awarded

  • Terele Pávez (best supporting actress)
  • Carlos Bernases (best production)
  • Arturo García and José Luis Arrizabalaga (best film architecture)
  • Pablo Blanco (best editing)
  • Paco Delgado (best costumes)
  • María Dolores Gómez Castro, Javier Hernández Valentín and Francisco J. Rodríguez Frías (best makeup and wigs)
  • Charly Schmukler and Nicolas de Poulpiquet (best note)
  • Juan Ramón Molina and Ferrán Piquer for the best special effects.
  • There were also nominations for Joan Valent (best music) and Kiko de la Rica (best camera).

There were other film awards within the framework of the Premio Fénix, the Fotogramas de Plata , Premio Feroz, Fantasporto and at the International Festival of Fantasy Films in Brussels. Moreover, taking the witches of Zugarramurdi in the Film Festival of San Sebastián in part.

Reviews

Luis Martínez wrote in the daily newspaper El Mundo that he found the film very unsteady: Sometimes brilliant, then again just loud and always fragmentary.

Carlos Boyero of El País wrote: “The gags and the dialogues are not wasted, grace merges with the spectacular.” But he also found that witches can quickly become saturated. "But it would be unfair to want to argue about the inadequacies of the result."

Oti Rodríguez Marchante wrote in the ABC newspaper that this film was "a very funny and successful" artifact "with an almost endless and crazy witch's Sabbath finale."

Rotten Tomatoes thought The Witches of Zugarramurdi was genre fun and thought the film was "dark, ghastly and wonderfully subversive."

On kino.de it says: "Spain's genre specialist Alex de la Iglesia pulls out all the effects in his latest horror comedy series."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ budget on cineuropa.org
  2. ↑ Gross profit on boxofficemojo.com
  3. ↑ Daniel Guthmann, Joachim Palutzki: The Witches of Zugarramurdi. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de. August 28, 2005, accessed February 23, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Las brujas de Zugarramurdi on elseptimoarte.net
  5. ↑ The Witches of Zugarramurdi on Rotten Tomatoes
  6. ↑ The Witches of Zugarramurdi on kino.de

Web links