jose mojica marins's 'at midnight i'll take your soul' is an intense work of art. there is a trace that lingered inside after the initial viewing, which made me wonder what precisely about this low-budget, nearly amateur, third-world film was so engaging as to stay behind in thought. there is a violence — one that covers the atmosphere from beginning to end, and binds all the events on the stage. the character of coffin joe, along with the performative-presence of marins, conducts much of the intrigue of the film. despite, or because of, jose marins's decision to ultimately play the lead (from his inability to keep an actor interested in committing to the role) there is a high-energy, bleeding-heart-on-the-table quality to the character which would have been - considering the circumstances of budget, production, and genre - either distant or stilted. his characterization breaks threshold and wields iconography :: the top hat and cape at first strikes as silly dress up, until marins introduces the notion of the separated social classes into the narrative ... it was then when i began to see this character, named Zé do Caixão in the original Portuguese, as part of an alienated oligarchy belonging to this industrialized poverty state depicted // the result resembling a highly original, and deeply willed, edgar poe-like narrative. that Zé makes his fortune in the business of dead bodies wraps the intent into itself — reflecting to the Day of the Dead.
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