Bitches

Running time: N/A

Let's be honest. Divorce is never easy. It's usually riddled with misfortunes, pain and violence. Ildiko Szabo's film Bitches follows the married life of three women, their marriages in somewhat of a state of disarray. The first has already left her husband. Upon his pleading, she returns only to have him hang himself in front of her. The second woman is about to leave her husband. In anger, he rapes her in front of the children. The third woman is about to find out about her husband's violent nature and his lack of discretion in front of the kids, as he pushes them through a glass door. Joining forces, the three women begin their scourge of revenge upon their husbands. Hey, wait! Didn't the first woman's husband hang himself? Well, it seems he was as bad at killing himself as he was at marriage. Finding him in a hospital, his wife decides he needs a little more of a lesson. This often fragmented film marks Ildiko Szabo's second feature in Cinequest, the first being Child Murders in 1994. What she captures with Bitches is an often comical, over the top, sometimes bloody farce about the trials and tribulations of people "in love". Szabo says, "I believe the features that make people want a divorce are exactly the same as the ones that made them want a marriage some time earlier. What they can no longer bear in each other is just what they used to find peculiar when they fell in love." --Mike Rabehl