The Middle Mystery of Kristo Negro

Not everyone can cope with it, but the film opens with what should be an age-old ritual. Several men slaughter and skin an animal in the open field. It’s a young water buffalo that continues to breathe when it hardly has any skin left. The landscape has a biblical appeal and the people are dressed in timeless garb. Less timeless are the Roman legionaries who appear and disappear. A Christ-like figure is left on his own in the empty landscape and starts dragging the carcass of the water buffalo as if it were his cross. He seems to carry all his sins through a hellish landscape that looks as if it were designed in a feverish dream.
Without the Catholic Church, there probably wouldn’t be any such thing as a cult film. The old, theatrical and mystical rituals of the church are a never-ending source of inspiration for film makers who are sensitive to a similarly hysterical rapture or who want to mock the conservative institution.
Although you could expect it from an outspokenly underground film maker like Khavn, in this case one cannot really talk about direct mockery of religion. Is it’s more that he takes the element of self chastising that is part of certain rituals (such as the acted Way of the Cross) one step further and makes the ritual more real than was maybe intended.
The Hungry Ghosts programme also includes the director’s Three Days of Darkness. (GjZ)

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