Bloody great (Santa Sangre (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Santa Sangre (DVD)
Date:	21/08/04 (236 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Totally unlike

Disadvantages: Undeservedly

So, hands up who's heard of Alejandro Jodorowski. (No no, don't *actually* put your hand up, I?m not going to see it from here, am I? Tsk.) A strange Chilean director, he has a huge cult following. His most famous film, El Topo, appeared in 1970, a bizarre Western featuring amputees, dead animals, nudity, Eastern mysticism and sex with midgets. It went down very well with the counterculture types who saw it in New York. John Lennon, of all people, financed Jodorowski's next film, The Holy Mountain, which is like El Topo but even better. Jodorowski's career since then has been blighted by problems, and he's only managed to make three films since the early Seventies. Two I haven't seen, they've never even been distributed in Britain. The other, happily, is Santa Sangre, a masterpiece in every way.

Made in 1989, Santa Sangre is sort of a horror film, although that doesn?t really do it justice. It opens with a naked young man young man, Fenix (played by Jodorowski?s son Axel) in an asylum in Mexico City, totally uncommunicative and somewhat feral (he sleeps in a dog basket). Almost immediately, the film launches into a 30-minute flashback explaining how he came to be this way. As a young boy he lived in a slightly flea-bitten circus. He performs as a boy magician; his dad, Orgo, an overweight American macho man, is the knifethrower; his mother, Concha, a religious fanatic, is a trapeze artist. His best friend?s a dwarf and he?s in love with a deaf mute girl, Alma, communicating with her through mime. Then everything goes wrong for young Fenix. The circus?s elephant dies, for starters. Then his father decides to have an affair with the Tattooed Lady (Alma?s guardian). Concha discovers them, and throws a convenient bottle of sulphuric
acid over his genitals. He slices her arms off, then cuts his own throat. The Tattooed Lady flees, taking Alma with her, leaving Fenix alone. Enough to drive anyone mad, I?d have thought.

Back in the present day, Fenix perks up after a day out which ends with him and his fellow inmates being given cocaine and taken to a prostitute. It then turns out that his mother is still alive, so he escapes the asylum and they become a double act in a burlesque show, Fenix standing behind her and pretending his arms are hers. And then the murders start? All this and we?re only halfway through! The dwarf and Tattooed Lady from Fenix?s childhood reappear, as does the beautiful deaf-mute Alma, now grown up. To be honest I?d guessed exactly what was going to happen, including the twist ending, pretty early on. But although that might annoy me in some films, in this one it doesn?t matter at all.

The genius of Santa Sangre lies in the incredibly unusual imagery that Jodorowski throws at us. Filmed in what look like some deeply dodgy areas of Mexico City, it somehow turns the world of sleazy pimps and often grotesque prostitutes into a fantastical dream world. The circus sequence has some stunning moments, especially the funeral of the elephant, where its huge coffin is paraded through the streets accompanied by the whole circus (many sad clowns) before being dumped into a ravine. There?s so much good stuff in this film. The scene where the adult Fenix mimes along to the Invisible Man on TV, perfectly mimicking Claude Rains? moves, is amazing, as is the disturbing sequence when lots of naked ladies painted white rise from the grave to demand to know why they were murdered. It occasionally lapses into silliness - there?s a scene where Fenix imagines himself as Jesus having live chickens thrown at him, b
ut based on his earlier films that?s typical of Jodorowski, and is probably a bit like Ken Russell and nuns - you have to expect something like that to crop up somewhere.

The dialogue is all in English, often heavily accented. The acting is generally very good (although the boy playing the young Fenix - another of Jodorowski?s sons - is a bit weak). Especially good are Fenix himself and Blanca Guerra as his mother. The scenes where he acts as her arms are incredibly well-done, brilliantly mimed on his part as he stands behind her, a look of torment on his face, with his arms interacting with her body, not with his own. A lot of the cast are amateurs, people Jodorowski saw on the street and liked the look of. And, as in his earlier films, there are plenty appearances by dwarfs and handicapped people. There?s a grotesque bit where Alma is menaced first by an acromegalic and then by a man with one ear that probably lurches into slightly dodgy territory - using people who look physically different as a threat is tacky - but, again, you have to expect this in Jodorowski?s films.

The cinematography is nice, kind of understated. The direction is exemplary, and there are some great tracking shots. The incidental music is terrific, a nice blend of Mexican and circus music. The pace doesn?t flag either; the film never gets boring. All in all this is a very well-produced film which more than lives up to its own aspirations. There is quite a bit of nudity (although less than you?d expect in a film brimming with hookers and strippers). Some of the murders, especially the first, are very gruesome indeed. Most of the violence is directed against women, although the nasty acid-on-genitals bit in the circus sequence kind of balances it out to an extent, and it wouldn?t be fair to describe this as misogynistic. (Although Claudio Argento, the f
ilm?s producer, is the brother of Dario Argento, a horror director who has devoted his entire career to killing women on screen, so maybe I?m wrong.)

It is, of course, screamingly Oedipal, with its castrations, both literal and figurative, and in Fenix?s relations with his parents. Much is made of the phallic imagery of knifethrowing. There?s a deep unease about women running through the film, with the Tattooed Lady being both alluring and grotesque, a fleshy nightmare who you?d still want to, er, spend time with. There?s a lot of blood and religious imagery mixed in with the sex imagery, and shots like the elephant?s very phallic trunk squirting out blood as it dies are mind-boggling in their implications. It seems that perhaps Jodorowski has issues that most men have managed to work out by his age. But whatever, it certainly makes the film more interesting on any number of levels.

Santa Sangre really is quite unlike anything else I?ve ever seen. It has a kind of magical realism feel to it (it sort of reminded me of 100 Years of Solitude a bit, even though the stories are hugely different). It?s been compared to the films of Buñuel and Fellini. It definitely borrows from 1930s Hollywood horror, both in its use of footage from The Invisible Man and its borrowing of certain plot elements from the classic Mad Love. The circus bits also have a lot in common with a silent Tod Browning/Lon Chaney melodrama, The Unknown, which has knife throwers and people getting their arms cut off in profusion (and the emphasis on mime in Jodorwski?s circus sequence suggests that he is paying homage). In fact, what with Browning?s fondness for circuses, side show freaks and twisted sexual undercurrents, perhaps Santa Sangre is more like his stuff than anyone else?s.

Oh dear, this is getting
a bit long and I haven?t even mentioned the DVD yet. Disc 1 has the film and a commentary (Jodorowski with film historian Alan Jones). The commentary is actually a bit unnecessary in my view, as I found that Jodorowski explained a bit too much about where he was coming from, which tended to demystify it (in fact I stopped watching about halfway through, as it was actually starting to spoil my enjoyment of the film). He is an entertaining chap to listen to, and refreshingly candid about all kinds of things, but it didn?t really work for me. Disc 2 has quite a lot. There?s a short film by Axel Jodorowski, who plays Fenix. It?s only a few minutes long, a black and white silent-movie pastiche about a man who tries to push the Eiffel Tower over to prove the strength of his love for a young lady. It?s kind of amusing. You can also watch it with a commentary by Alejandro Jodorowski, but he runs out of things to say after about a minute, and for some reason the piano accompaniment doesn?t play if you have the commentary on. There?s a deleted scene from the film, again with commentary.

There?s an hour-long documentary about Jodorowski, made in France (sub-titled throughout). It mainly features a long interview with the man about his work, in theatre and comic books as well as films, and has footage of a Tarot seminar he held. It features contributions from collaborators of Jodorowski like Marcel Marceau and legendary comic artist Moebius, as well as Peter Gabriel. There?s also a video of him answering questions at the ICA in London in 2002, which is quite fun. One of my friends was there, but I couldn?t see him on the rare occasions the camera panned across the audience. Other than that there?s a gallery of posters and lobby stills, and a gallery of press clippings (totally pointless,
as you can?t read anything except the headlines). And there?s a text biography of Jodorowski which is pretty good, although as ever the text is a bit on the small side. It?s not a bad second disc, but it does push the price up a bit, and there isn?t a single-disc edition which is a bit annoying.

Anyway, there it is. Santa Sangre is genuinely great film that deserves to be far more widely known than it is. It obviously won?t be to everyone?s taste, but it deserves to be at least as successful as Blue Velvet. I strongly recommend it.

Capital letters courtesy of: http://www.chuckleweb.co.uk/fixit.php

Summary: yeah, good film, old review, diffrent format...