The first review of Barbazul!

Barbazul is out and selling. People are viewing it, enjoying it and having their opinions. Our new release is making an impression and already leaving a mark. The first review to be published came from Mike Haberfelner at Search My Trash:

Based on a fairytale, this (Barbazul) starts like a rather typical (if impressively shot) romance, and onlyb the murder (of Amy Hesketh) at the beginning of the movie suggests there is something wrong – which of course creates just the right atmosphere of unease for the film to never lose its edge. Add to this a directorial effort that’s subtle enough and lets the film flow at a fittingly moderate pace, but doesn’t shy away from more extreme images when needed (like in most of Amy Hesketh’s own scenes of the rather shocking finale), a uniformly very competent cast, and wonderful locations, and you’ve got yourself a pretty impressive film. Recommended, actually!

You can read the entire review here

We’re very happy with the reception Barbazul is getting so far and I’m sure it will grow. It’s a film that should not be missed, not only because it has enough GIMP of the strangulation kind plus whipping and stabbing and suffocating, but because it’s a great work of cinematic art by a very talented director and actress, none other than our own Amy Hesketh. Yes, we kind of own her.

Important Notification: The DVD of Barbazul bought at VermeerWorks.com is shipped from the US to the US and it has the cover of the DVD.

The Pachamama/VermeerWorks DVD movies, our mainstream DVDs, that is, are shipped from within the US and with covers. ALL the Red Feline DVD movies are still being shipped from Bolivia and without covers.

Since we have noticed some problems with deliveries in Germany, we’re no longer shipping DVDs with covers to Germany. So, all our DVDs to Germany, both VermeerWorks and Red Feline DVD movies, will be shipped without covers.

ALL DVDs to Europe are shipped from Bolivia until further notice. I hope this notification is read by everyone.

With that notification out of the way, I can now go back to discuss Barbazul and other issues.

The official “censored” trailer for Barbazul is getting a lot of visits. We have both trailers in our Vermeer Works page.

I invite you all to visit our pages and, more importantly, get the film.

Bill K. we’re going to keep most of the information about Eda and Amy movie collaboration under wraps for now but when the time comes, we’ll be releasing some information to arouse the interest of our fans for that future project.

The reason we released a lot of information about Maleficarum, Le Marquis de la Croix and even Barbazul it was that, the arousal of the interest in the film long before it came out. If the time ever came when we didn’t need to discuss the content of our films, we would be very happy. Perhaps in the near future the sole mention of who’s making the movie, Amy or Jac, would immediately cause people to imagine what it may have. Perhaps.

Dead But Dreaming is a very intense movie, it’s also a Vampire story, the GIMP scenes are part of the story, unlike Maleficarum or Le Marquis where the GIMP IS the story. We expect that the interest in Dead But Dreaming will come because of what it is and some of the interest for what it contains.

To the question of Are too many teaser trailer clips or pictures bad or good? I can say that we’re not very sure. I think Maleficarum is one example where all the promo didn’t hurt.

Ralphus In Agent X, during the electric shock scene, Amy’s wrists are handcuffed behind her back with real handcuffs and her ankles are tied to the table’s legs. She’s not tied down. The rope is around her neck and over her mouth. When she’s raped, after the electro shocks, the rope tightens around her neck as she’s pulled down, strangling her in the process. During the electrocution, as her body stiffens and her head raises a bit, the rope also tightens. That was the purpose of the rope during the electro shock torture.

The rest of the movie, she’s very much tied up, as when she’s suspended and whipped, or suspended upside down for her water torture.

The crucifixion scene is, of course, Jac’s cup of tea and he will sneak one of those in his movies if at all possible, even if they are documentaries about poor countries. It’s his Catholic background, perhaps, and he has a solid following that would be devastated if he didn’t do it.

The follow up story, in Jac’s head, has a totally different actress for the role of Agent Y. It follows Agent
X because the new agent is searching for the tragically lost agent who was in a mission and she disappeared. Unfortunately she also fall in the hands of the Che look alike. What happens to her is very creative and involves electricity, water, ugly looking chairs, ropes, whips… and so on. Is there a crucifixion? You bet.

NEl Wananchi: Agent X was a small production, made by two people, Jane and JJ, without a crew, without a script, without a budget and to only indulge in as many tortures as they could come up with in the time frame allotted both, for the movie and for the production and as many as Jane, aka Amy, could resist. Shot in only four or five nights, a couple of hours each time and without any help whatsoever.

A future spy movie will be a totally different ball game. It will have a full crew, a larger cast, a script, a few interesting locations and, most importantly, a budget.

As far as the methods of modern interrogation.. I don’t think that most modern methods are as fun to watch as the old ones.

We do like criticism. In fact, it does help us improve our work. We believe that there’s always room for improvement. What we don’t believe in is limiting our imagination in the name of realism. If we did, our victims would not last one torture without screaming out and in detail, whatever info they are withholding.

Sloth said: Upon seeing Margot’s post immediately ordered a copy of “Barbazul” – when it comes to an Amy movie there is no Sloth about me. Stay well all

That’s the attitude!

Ralphus Amy’s reputation is growing, yes, and the comparisons abound. From Hitchcock, to Jess Franco, from Polansky to Lars von Trier. I believe it will grow even more with every movie she directs or produces. A very good thing. It’s also a bit problematic, because there will always be the need to come up with a better idea than the last.

Part of that reputation comes from the fact that the films produced by Amy and Jac do go where most filmmakers dare not. We recently saw the new Tarantino film which lacks precisely what Spaghetti westerns, particularly those lesser known from the 60’s, had: great GIMP. Yes there’s whipping but no nudity during such potentially great scene.

Our new (female) Jess Franco is willing to deliver, that’s the reason why she’s getting to be so popular. Just imagine Amy and Jac making a western… with toneladas of Gimp. (Toneladas= Tons, but it sounds a lot more heavy and loaded.)

A Canadian I think keeping Eda’s story a mystery would be good to a point. But, how do we sell it? I guess on the basis of the reputation of all involved, the knowledge of what they do. The danger of building anticipation without anything to ground it is that people could be disappointed when they
don’t see the movie they imagined. Some teasers are always welcome.

That’s all folks, now run to your nearest VermeerWorks website and get Barbazul.
You make the show go on. Oh, and by the way, you can download the commentary track for Barbazul here. Click on the green button that says DOWNLOAD. Then put your DVD on your machine, your commentary track on your computer or MP3 player, start them both at the same time and listen to the commentary while watching the movie.