14th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival Opening Night

Ferpect Crime screenwriter Jorge Guerricaehevarria and director Alex de la Iglesia introduce their film at the 14th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival.

Kicking off this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival was the latest film from Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia, the dark comedy Ferpect Crime. A director with a growing fan base in Europe, De la Iglesia was the 2003 Festival’s recipient of the TLA Video Phantasmagoria Award and returned to Philadelphia to introduce his newest film..

Taking the stage with screenwriter Jorge Guerricaehevarria, de la Iglesia launched into an hysterical, self-deprecating apology. “My English is bad… but so is my Spanish.” He also “apologized” for the movie. “I can’t make a good movie,” he continued over the audience’s laughter. “I’ve made seven movies, but they’re all… eh, so-so.” De la Iglesia also confessed that although the movie was promoted as a comedy, there’s only “a few funny moments. Not so much funny, as upsetting.”

Guerricaehevarria added that the pair love the classic Hollywood comedies of directors like Billy Wilder, but when it came to creating the story for Ferpect Crime, “we try something different.”

De la Iglesia also explained that “the title is a mistake. Much like the crime in the movie itself.”

Set in a Spanish department store, Ferpect Crime centers on Rafael (Guillermo Toledo), a self-stylized “elegant man in an elegant world.” The top salesman in the ladieswear department, Rafael is a smooth talker and has the ability to read women - whether they be potential shoppers or conquests. He sees the department as his own personal kingdom, complete with several young, lovely salesgirls as his consorts. Rafael’s only rival is Antonio (Luis Valera), the serious-minded head of the menswear department, who frowns on Rafael’s slick, womanizing ways.

Things take a change for the worse, when Rafael loses a sales competition, and subsequent promotion, to Antonio. Antonio is quick to lord his new position over Rafael until the two come to blows in a dressing room, with Rafael accidentally killing Antonio. Unwanted help for the chore of disposing of Antonio’s body comes in the form of Lordes (Monica Cervera), a salesgirl whose homely features have guaranteed her escape from Rafael’s notice for the ten years that they both have worked at the store. In exchange for her silence, Rafael soon finds himself Lordes’s lover - a situation he will ultimately go to any extreme to rectify.

While de la Iglesia and Guerricaehevarria may admit to a love of the comedies of Wilder and Hawks, Ferpect Crime bears the fingerprints of many other Hollywood classics. The slapstick of the Three Stooges and the dark humor of Alfred Hitchcock are in ample evidence, most notably when combined in the scene where Rafael attempts to stuff Antonio’s body in the too-small opening of the department store’s furnace. The film also contains a dash of social commentary when it is mentioned that department sales have increased by 20 percent after Lordes forces Rafael to fire, one by one, the statuesque beauties of his department and replace them with women who won’t turn his head. The script’s wit is razor-sharp and de la Iglesia and Guerricaehevarria have loaded it with enough comic surprises that the few moments of violence in the story definitely shock.

Toledo and Cervera deliver two outstanding and complementary performances, making their characters at times sleazy and sympathetic, ultimately leaving one torn as to who one wants to see survive the film’s climactic scenes.

De la Iglesia’s previous film 800 Balas (800 Bullets) may have had more hart, but Ferpect Crime definitely is de la Iglesia at the top of his form. With several other Spanish directors like Guillermo del Torro and gaining prominence in the United States, and a recent domestic DVD release of 800 Bullets, hopefully Ferpect Crime will be another step in de la Iglesia’s road to recognition in this country.