Monday, May 12, 2014

Movie Monday: Santa Sangre

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"Forget everything you have ever seen."

That's the tagline for Alejandro Jodorowksy's 1989 horror/thriller Santa Sangre and, for once, it's a fairly accurate assessment; it truly is unlike any move I have ever seen before.

As of just a few weeks ago, I was only vaguely familiar with Jodorowsky. I knew he directed the cult film El Topo, and that he was a sort of Terry Gilliam-esque mad genius. I had plans to see the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, about his (ultimately) failed attempt to make a film of Frank Hebert's sci-fi novel. And while I didn't feel like I had to have a lot of knowledge about the guy beforehand, I thought why not and get a better understanding of his filmography? So here we are with Santa Sangre.
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Describing the plot of Santa Sangre is almost useless in conveying the film; it'd be like telling someone about the dream you just had and expecting them to understand it ("His face was made of pudding; didn't I mention that?"). But here's a brief outline: it starts off in some sort of hospital or mental institution, with a naked man (with a phoenix tattoo on his chest) climbed atop a giant tree branch.

The film then flashes back to the man as a boy: his name is Fenix (played by Jodorowsky's son Adan), and he works as a child magician working at a circus run by his lumbering, imposing father Orgo, who has a knife-throwing act.
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His mother Concha is also a performer, as is a tattooed lady who serves as the target for Orgo's knives. There's also the tattooed lady's daughter Alma, who is deaf and mute but seems to fancy Fenix (who feels the same way):
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Orgo and the Tattooed Lady have a thing going on, and they don't even really bother to hide it: during an exhibition, the Tattooed Lady looks positively orgasmic as the metal shafts come within an inch of her body. Concha sees all this, and is understandably upset.
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Concha is no one to be messed with: she is also the head of a religious cult who worships a young girl who was raped and had her arms cut off (hence the arm symbols, like seen above). Their church is about to be demolished, and Concha and her flock make one last attempt to save it from the wrecking ball.

Concha learns of her husband's affair, but it hypnotized by Orgo into forgetting about it. Later, the circus elephant dies, and a massive funeral is held, ending with a huge casket being dumped off a cliff, where it smashes to bits. The local townsfolk--who just a moment ago were mourning the elephant--swarm over the carcass, ripping it to pieces and handing it out as food. Fenix, who cared for the elephant, watches all this in tears. It's here that Orgo gives his son the phoenix tattoo, with a knife dipped in red paint. Orgo tells his son this will make him a man.

Later, Concha catches Orgo and the Tattooed Lady having sex, and pours acid on her husband's genitals(!). Orgo cuts his wife's arms off, and then kills himself in the street, all in front of their son.

Flash forward, and Fenix is grown up (now played by Jodorowsky's other son Axel) and, after escaping from the mental hospital, takes up with his mother and "becomes" her arms as part of a grotesque act. More than an act, various women start getting killed, including the Tattooed Lady, now forced into a life of prostitution.
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There's more, a lot more: in fact, I can't remember a film that crammed more ideas and scenes and moods in a mere two hours. Heck, there's even a scene where Fenix imagines himself as the Invisible Man, and Jodorowsky shows a fanboy's love of those old Universal horror films, replicating their look almost to the tee, except in color:
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Despite all the grotesque characters, bloody violence, and human misery on display, Santa Sangre at the end snaps out of its dreamlike state to give the whole story a satisfying, even strangely upbeat, ending.
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While I have described (some of) Santa Sangre's plot, I'm really not doing justice to the film: right from the beginning, you are swept up in this strange world that seems completely unreal but still rooted in reality. And despite all the hideous behavior and violence, Jodorowsky's compositions are so beautiful that you can't look away. I will fully admit, there were times when I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I was never frustrated or bored.

I said up top that it's almost impossible to accurately describe your dream to someone, and ends up (usually) boring the person hearing it because they only get the words, not the music. In Jodorowsky's Dune, the man himself talks about how useless it is to let others try and make changes in your film to make it more palatable, more commercial. Describing these people, Jodorowsky doesn't come off so much as mad as confused: why would you let anyone meddle with your dream?

And that's what Santa Sangre feels like: a nightmarish dream, a children's book written by and for adults. It's not for everyone, but if you're willing to turn yourself over to the man and his mad visions, Jodorowsky will take you on a amazing tour of the kinds of dreams he has.



Random Thought: A number of Bob Dylan songs have been floated as potential ideas for full-length movies, but (I think) none have ever come to fruition. I can't be the first person to think of this, but if anyone ever wanted to make a movie of Dylan's phantasmagoric 1965 opus "Desolation Row", I think I know a guy.


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