Macumba

In an old building scheduled for demolition, a mixed group of people dedicates itself to boredom and idleness. The most mentally agile among them conjures the character of an amateur detective, who ends up in the house while investigating crime. Unlike the Minotaur whence Max Taurus gets his name, he gets lost in the labyrinth the old building presents, with its strange and, to him, hostile residents. In an atmosphere of repressed love and violence, he senses a future crime… Macumba evokes a world of imagery that draws from penny dreadfuls and crime thrillers. The film increasingly takes on the structure of a (bad) dream. Context dissolves; accompanied by exotic sounds, trance and magic fill the air. Under threat of the wrecking ball and nuclear war, a lethargy takes hold, in which the men indulge in violent ritual, while the women see a possible way out. “We imagined a love that stopped being just hope”. And, indeed, Elfi Mikesch dedicated her group study, developed with the actors, “to love”.