Santa Sangre, 1989.
Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Starring Axel Jodorowsky, Guy Stockwell, Blanca Guerra, Thelma Tixou, Sabrina Dennison, and Adan Jodorowsky.
SYNOPSIS:
A former circus artist escapes from a mental asylum and begins to commit murders in the name of his mother, a religious cult leader who has no arms.
As with all Alejandro Jodorowsky movies, any review should begin with the question ‘where to begin with this one?’, because Santa Sangre is as weird, bizarre and any other adjective of a similar meaning you can find as his more notable midnight movie classics from the 1970s. However, despite still being an acquired taste, Santa Sangre is a little more coherent and – for use of a better word – accessible than El Topo or The Holy Mountain, and if the idea of Jodorowsky directing a horror movie rather than more psychedelic and trippy explorations of the mind intrigues you then this 4K UHD set from Severin Films could just be just the ticket.
With a first half that blends Fellini with the unhinged carnival madness of Tod Browning’s Freaks, the movie opens with adult Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky) in his cell in an asylum, being coaxed down from a tree he has in there by the staff and eating a fish like a wild animal. Cue the flashback tale as to how he got there, and we see Fenix as a child (now played by Adan Jodorowsky) living with a circus. His father is a knife thrower called Orgo (Guy Stockwell) and his mother Concha (Blanca Guerra) is a trapeze artist, but she also happens to be the leader of a religious cult that worships a rape victim whose arms were cut off before she was murdered, much to the disdain of the local secular church.
Orgo has a very flirty relationship with the tattooed woman (Thelma Tixou) who acts as his assistant, and when that flirting becomes physical Concha loses her mind and throws acid on her husband’s genitals, causing him to cut off her arms – ironically- in anger before slitting his own throat as he can no longer ‘be a man’. The trouble is, this is all played out right in front of the young Fenix, so it is no wonder he wound up where he did.
But this is all in the first act of the movie, and once Fenix is coaxed down out of his tree he is allowed out of the asylum with a bunch of fellow patients, all of whom have Down’s syndrome, and if you think that’s weird then hang on to your hats as Felix then meets up with his armless mother, forming an act where he stands behind her and uses his arms as hers, which all sounds relatively innocent until people start getting brutally murdered, including a certain tattooed woman who is now a sex worker.
Mad enough for you? Awash with influences including The Invisible Man, The Beast with Five Fingers and Psycho, as well as the aforementioned Fellini and Freaks, Santa Sangre is undoubtedly a movie from the same warped mind that created The Holy Mountain et al, but with those clearer influences and a story that (vaguely) runs as a smooth narrative there is a sense of, if not trying to smash the mainstream, a movie that at least is dangling a carrot to audiences and daring them to indulge in the debauchery onscreen.
And Jodorowsky is surprisingly restrained when it comes to the sex and violence that are central to the themes running through the movie, having seemingly learnt that less is more. The nudity is very arty, usually involving bodies covered in make-up, and the sex comical and no more explicit than romps seen in the more outrageous Carry On… movies, which fits nicely with the kills as they are so over-the-top and gratuitous that all you can do is laugh; in one scene, a character is brutally stabbed and slashed, most of it implied and with what are obviously buckets of red liquid being thrown at the walls, but given how few and far between these moments are, the combination of black humour, comic timing and a sense of the theatrical all comes together to create a movie that is not only all the adjectives you can already apply to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films, but is also surprisingly entertaining even if your tastes don’t always align with the director’s more peculiar works.
To help you get the most out of this movie, Severin have put together a bumper package that includes over eight hours of bonus material, the most notable being Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen: The World of Santa Sangre, a feature-length documentary that goes deep into the creation of the movie, featuring interviews with key members of the cast and crew.
Along with this there are several interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky, composer Simon Boswell, screenwriter Roberto Leoni, producer Claudio Argento and many other notable creatives involved with it, an audio commentary with Alejandro Jodorowsky and author/critic Alan Jones, a Q&A with Alejandro Jodorowsky, music video, a Simon Boswell short film, a soundtrack CD and many other nuggets to sink your teeth into should you desire, and why wouldn’t you? After all, whether you like the movie or not, it would at least be interesting to know how and why it came about.
Naturally, as with all Jodorowsky’s output, there is very little middle ground when it comes to opinions, as you can either accept the surreal nature of his filmmaking and go on the journey, or you can dismiss it as a load of nonsense. Either way, you cannot deny that the man has a style all his own and he doesn’t really care whether you like it or not as he’s going to make the movies he wants to, but if you are going to venture into his uncanny and often disturbing world then Santa Sangre is the one to watch, and this colourful and comprehensive limited edition set is the best way to watch it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
