|
 mongst the innumerable film directors that have
come and gone over the roughly 100 years of motion picture history, there
have always been a few who have stood out for being mavericks. Directors
such as Samuel Fuller, Orson Welles, Robert Altman and Sam Peckinpah made
names for themselves by going against the established studio system, turning
out films that expressed their personal passions rather than what the
studios wanted. That's not to say their counter-culture films were all good,
but by the sheer fact that they were subversive to the 'system', they gained
notoriety amongst the self-proclaimed cinematic cognoscenti.
Perhaps the most maverick of
these maverick directors is Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean who operated
mostly in France and Mexico, and was the consummate artiste. In a career
dating back to the mid-1950s, Jodorowsky has been a puppeteer, a circus
performer, a mime, a playwright, a film director, a novelist and a comic
book author. Prolific as he may be, we all know that quantity doesn't always
equal quality, and so it is with Jodorowsky.
An early proponent of the surrealist film style, and
getting his inspiration from genre legend Luis Buñuel, Jodorowsky
saturates his films with his own brand of holier-than-thou social
criticism that would be infuriatingly condescending if it weren't for the
lush and often shocking visuals that compliments them. I own Jodorowsky's
notorious "El Topo" and the surreal "Fando y Lis", and
I've seen "The Holy Mountain." In each of those three films, I
was struck by the complex, even inspired, visuals, but frustrated by the
ponderous and often heavy-handed stories. Thus, I was intrigued to see
what Jodorowsky could do with "Santa Sangre." I was prepared for
the full-on Jodorowsky weirdness, but was surprised, and perhaps a little
disappointed, at just how conventional the film ultimately was.
"Santa Sangre" deals with paternal
obsession and the terrible psychosis it inflicts on a severely and
emotionally damaged boy (which sounds a lot like Hitchcock's
"Psycho," doesn't it?). The boy, Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky, one of
the director's own sons), is a performer in a circus. His mother Concha
(Blanca Guerra) is a trapeze artist who swings from her own hair, and his
father Orgo (Guy Stockwell) is a knife thrower who drinks way too much. To
complicate matters, little Fenix is in puppy love with the Tattooed
Woman's deaf-mute daughter.
When the father isn't busy getting drunk and making
out with the Tattooed Women, he's tying up Fenix and carving tattoos into
his chest with a knife. Fenix's mother, on the other hand, is a member of
some strange cult that worships a woman who was attacked by two men who
chopped off her arms, raped her and left her for dead in a pool of her own
blood. One day, while performing her high-wire act, Concha spies Orgo
making out with the Tattooed Woman. In a rage, she storms off the circus
floor and follows Orgo to his tryst, where she grabs a bottle of sulfuric
acid and douses Orgo's jewels. Insane with pain and anger, Orgo grabs his
knives, chops off Concha's arms (how ironic), and then slits his own
throat -- all of it taking place in front of young Fenix.
Naturally, Fenix is a little messed up, and we find
him in a mental hospital 20 years later. Through a twisted sequence of
circumstances involving a group of Downs Syndrome kids, a drug dealing
pimp, a dead elephant and a morbidly obese Madame, Fenix is reunited with
not only the Tattooed woman, but her deaf-mute daughter and his now
armless mother. What follows is a twisted tale of manipulation in the most
literal sense, as Concha uses Fenix as her instrument of vengeance.
The film plays like "Psycho" as directed by
Dario Argento, who was generally considered the 'Italian Hitchcock.' The
classic Jodorowsky touches are all present, including vibrant imagery, odd
characters, appalling situations and plenty of blasphemous commentary. The
film displays a Fellini-esque celebration of the off-kilter side of life,
with a generous helping of Freudian and Oedipal overtones. Jodorowsky even
takes the opportunity to showcase his love of miming with some truly
inspired sequences. Yet, despite all the imagery and symbolism,
"Santa Sangre" is a fairly conventional gory slasher flick. It's
also easily Jodorowsky's biggest budgeted film, showcasing some slick
camera work and vivid sets.
Jodorowsky's films are definitely an acquired taste,
and casual viewers will be put off, perhaps even offended, by most of his
work. Although "Santa Sangre" is his most accessible and
mainstream film to date, it's still weird enough to creep out the
uninitiated, but not so weird as to scare them off.
|
