Entering any Jodorowsky film, you need to understand that you are about to participate in an experience. One that could herald many valuable things or one that might leave you cold and annoyed. They say, never judge a book by its cover, nor expect something from nothing and here it is paramount you do just that. Take for example the visuals on the side of this paragraph as my example. I was at school in the late 90s and my friend Chris, who used to get all sorts of oddities of cinema from his father, who was part of a company that duplicated films to cassettes (VHS). Through him I saw Godard, Truffaut, Anime, 40s film noir, the works of silent cinema and a few strange delights from the world of cult cinema. One day Chris came to me with his copy of SANTA SANGRE. He said , did I want to see it and if I liked it, I could have it. I asked him why he was so generous? I mean usually he wasn’t usually this benevolent. He laughed and said that the film was ‘shit’ and that he didn’t understand anything. He also said he was making room for NATURAL BORN KILLERS, that his dad was going to get about 20 copies of and this would make him rich. I laugh, took the film and watched it. I remember it well as I had to borrow the VHS player from my parents downstairs and had to make sure that, with an 18 certificate, that neither parent wanted to look closely at what I was watching.
Fenix (Axel and Adnan Jodorowsky) is the son of two circus performers. His Father Orgo (Guy stockwell) is a brutish circus master, who loves willing flesh and his mother Concha (Blanca Guerra), is a trapeze artist. She also leads the congregation of the Santa Sangre temple, which is hotly disputed economically and spiritually. It is the supposed site of a gruesome crime, that saw a young girl raped and dismembered. In between all of this Fenix beloved elephant is dying, his mother is being arrested and his father is eyeing up another woman in the shaped of a tattooed lady (Thelma Tixou). The funeral for the elephant spirals into horrors and after witnessing all of this, Fenix arrives into adulthood where his painful childhood memories haunt him.
Now I remember having to journey to the local and school libraries to research who Alejandro Jodorowsky was and what his film might have meant. I was well informed of his films EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, the director was a cult favourite and his films riffed on philosophy, psychology and primitive story telling. This didn’t help me that much, but it did stir a few questions as to what a film maker is saying can be compelled as much by the visual language as by the audible. Surrealism and sensation were and are collided here. The power of elemental forces are at play and even then, as now, I cant escape from its sheer potency. Though I gave it back to Chris and he sold it to our mutual friend Hamza for £3, it stayed with me.
Now luckily the Blu ray comes with a greatly informative commentary from Jodorowsky and journalist Alan Jones. Jones keeps the great man in check and focuses in on the hallucinatory fuses of his film. You also will not need to go to the library (of which there are few) to find out about Jodorowsky. The documentary Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Cult Cinema is a little unbalanced but it covers all of his biggest films, with stills and subs to help get you there.
Blu-ray contents: Main Feature / Optional commentary by Jodorowsky and journalist Alan Jones / Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Cult Cinema / La Constellation Jodorowsky by Louis Mouchet / Deleted scenes with commentary from Jodorowsky and journalist Alan Jones / Jodorowsky interview at ICA, London (2002) / Echek – A short film by Adan Jodorowsky (Alejandor’s son and star of Santa Sangre) / Mr Bongo Trailer
