Burt and Linda Pugach today. |
“If I can't have you, no one else will have you, and when I get
through with you, no one else will want you." –Burt Pugach
Documentaries
usually move me for a good afternoon or couple hours following their end. I’ll
bring them up over dinner to get intellectual points, and recommend them to
friends, but generally leave them on the back burner lest the topic on which
they are based resurfaces and I can say ‘Oh, I know about that, I watched the
documentary.’
Considering how blasé people get due to the volume of
documentaries with a message, it’s more difficult to find one that truly sticks
with you since its inception. I have found such a one. It is a sensational and
bizarre tale of an obsessive, fanatical, and hysterical love between two other
worldly personalities.
Crazy Love (2007)
directed by Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens follows attorney at large and professional eccentric
Burt Pugach who was a swarthy, egocentric and somewhat maniacal wealthy man on
the Staten Island scene in 1959 when he met 21-year-old pretty girl Linda Riss.
He showered her with gifts, courted her persistently, and propositioned her
until she relented and they began dating. Their turbulent relationship
eventually ended when she found out that he was already divorced and had a
child. Unable to deal with Linda leaving him, Burt paid three thugs to knock on
Linda’s door one fateful day and throw lye in her face, permanently blinding and
scarring her.
There was almost a Burton-Taylor glamor to their crazy, if it wasn't way of the Richter scale. |
You would think that this is where the story
ends, but this is actually where it starts to get interesting. This is just the
build up to the eventuality that rocks you to your core and completely blows
your mind.
You quickly realize that these two people
might exist in a realm of the insane and surreal that to them seems perfectly
normal and find yourself immersed in a story you would have never consciously
believed could have happened.
Pugach was sentenced to 14 years in prison
during which time he wrote his only love letters every day professing his
undying passion for her. After he was released they were married, and to this
day are still together.
The film allows access not only into the lives
but into the minds of truly unique individuals whose shocking attitude towards
romance and love might just leave you speechless, but will never let you
forget.
Tamara
Straus of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the film saying that it was
"among the weirdest explorations of connubial relationships since Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?’.
This film is inspirational on a few levels. It
makes us all remember that truth is often stranger than fiction and to find a story
that sensationalizes one doesn’t need to go much further than the headlines.
It’s ‘sick’ in that strange way that is enthralling and inescapable, and is
compelling and memorable at the same time. It’s funny yet heartbreaking,
visceral yet surreal, sardonic yet sincere, and on the whole a completely
unforgettable film experience.
Watch the Trailer for Crazy Love (2007) here.
No comments:
Post a Comment