Bad Blood

Review of : BAD BLOOD [2006]

Directed by : Tiago Guedes
Frederico Serra

Portuguese with English Subtitles .

(Also : Footnote about In a Dark Place - Directed by Donato Rotuno )

As does most of the human population I do find Evil interesting… not to say fascinating. Yet so much has been written, thought, filmed about the subject that it is trite , almost , to even bring up the subject in urbane parlors and conversations. Not because it is taboo, but because it no longer is taboo. Perhaps There is nothing sacred ( or scared) about evil, anymore.
For this reason , this film wins my unending admiration…The writer and the directors, the actors… all leave me breathless. This is a truly refreshing treatment of a time-worn and timeless subject.
My first recommendation is that any one who watches the film must watch the " Making of" special feature. From watching this , I gleaned some wonderful insights into the creative process and into the Genius of the team who made this film.
These are all comments I quote and paraphrase from the creators and actors:
" A horror film without being one there is hardly any blood in it --- a film about the Portuguese inner universe --- a film about how living in the countryside can influence and alter relationships…a film that is about Evil and yet avoids the sensationalism of scatology that is so popular amongst the youthful generation" …
To me this Film is definitely about exorcising demons. It is about Exorcism as a function , about Exorcism as a tool of survival… If I understood the comments in the interviews , this film, in a way , is a response to the ever present cultural Icon THE EXORCIST which has branded the minds of the last 3o years of film viewers. In that film there is an old Priest and a young priest. But there the parallel ends.
So much is touched upon, alluded to , made manifest without shocking the viewer. In some ways this is a quiet meditation from a unique , nearly medieval farmer’s point of view. Or perhaps it is , rather, about a modern slightly dysfunctional family , of a scientist Father and urbane Mother with typically nonchalant children and their clash with the remnants of a long medieval tradition of Catholicism still alive in the Portuguese countryside.
This film awakens many questions , without directly answering them. Amongst these : Will the mytho-religious ways of apprehending the world ever be completely supplant by reductive science? Or will mysteries such as the ever so Banal one of Evil ( to misquote the great Jewish Philosopher Hannah Arendt) , always defy science and force us, as humans, to seek understanding using alternative approaches. Indeed, even in the Hyper-scientific world of Star Wars, for example , we need Jedi mysticism to help explain the unexplainable…. So in the rustic environment of a Portuguese village the young, wet about the ears, priest must resort to the laying on of hands and Latin incantations ( a wizardry much less spectacular than Jedi telepathic mind-control ) to free the eldest son of our ill fated family from the Demon that afflicts him.
There is much more to the film than a simple tale of haunting. The complex weave of this tapestry shows—if you pardon my pursuing the contrast to the Jedi-world – how deviously indirect the suggestive influences of the Dark Side are. There are references to the perennial ‘ social issues ' of incest and masturbation, there is birth and death. Sorrow and anger… The somewhat bewildered family members blindly enter a world in which the sins of the Fathers revisit them--- the never ending domino effect of Blood for Blood which provides the Devil (or to use his post-modern name , the Whatever ) with his never ending feast.
At one point in the film the well worn truism that the Devils best trick is that he convinces us he does not exist, is cited by young the priest… as The actor who plays the Academic Pater-Familias says of his own country’s folklore :" In Portugal the Devil has hundreds of names , many faces. To use his correct appellation “ The Devil” brings bad luck." So indirect naming is considered wise and cautious. 'Bad Blood' is one of these names.
To conclude, the film treats of the Organic nature of Evil, ( as the title emphasizes ) and it is also about how the many forces which mold us and against which we build fortresses of thought and myth are forever elusive, no matter how we apply our Ratio ( the logical side of our being) .

As a finale I would like, if my readers ( if any ) permit me the excess , to quote the following passage from the script:

YOUNG PRIEST :
I mean - an exorcism ! I never paid much attention to these stories . Besides I always thought permission was necessary for it.
OLD PRIEST : Permission I have from God which dispenses with Church Bureaucracy . As for the stories , you have only been here a few months ...you are a lad from the seminary. See how these people live- and learn that you are the salvation ...otherwise you came here to do nothing.
YOUNG PRIEST : I am only asking you if you can guarantee that the girl was possessed by strange forces..
OLD PRIEST : And it is a very good question too ! But these people will always ask you something different ; if you can guarantee that she was NOT possessed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnote :

I also watched ,in the same night I watched the above, this film : IN A DARK PLACE ( 2006) Directed by Donatu Rotuno.
The comments on the IMDB page trash this interpretation of Henry James's novella TURN OF THE SCREW... but , perhaps because I had just watched BAD BLOOD, I was captivated by the parallels: Both films treat of Evil , and of Evil in the isolation of a country-side context , both allude to the sexual substrate of the human predicament , and of how misdirected erotic forces ruin life and lives. IN A DARK PLACE may be a cinematic faux-pas , in many ways, but I was not bored by this film. Perhaps only fit to be viewed by the Genre-Obsessed, it is noteworthy , none the less.

In my humble opinion.

Both films are available for rent at: Movieland, 1972 rue Ste Catherine O. Mtl.

The Book Fool can be reached at fictionalworld@hotmail.com

---