SANTA SANGRE
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It seems this year’s Halloween offered more options than any I can remember (probably helped that it was on a Friday), but for weeks leading up my plans were set: I was watching Santa Sangre at the Egyptian. I was open to anything before or after, but attending that screening was a must, and no tempting offers (sorry Andie!) would keep me from it.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1989 surreal horror classic managed to slip by many filmgoers upon its release, despite winning many film festival awards and being pushed by Roger Ebert, who ranked it among the year’s best films and gave it a glowing review; his first line - “To call Santa Sangre a horror film would be unjust to a film that exists outside all categories” - begins to speak to this film’s amazing ability to simultaneously be faithful to and disregarding of genre conventions. At once a surreal fantasy, a dark comedy, a bloody slasher flick, and a fable that seems seeped in some sort of hyperbolic Mexican calle culture, Santa Sangre manages to elevate its story - itself quite unique and enthralling - with a dark exploration on the lingering grip of heredity, those demons passed down from sick parent, and really from dysfunctional culture, to innocent child. Never has machismo been better symbolized than in the character of Orgo, with his phallic handling of knives and notoriously painful method of welcoming his son into Manhood.
Explored too - or rather gleefully exploited - are cult worship and iconography, from the religious to the sacrilegious, and the fine line in between. This theme has carried on from Jodorowsky’s early works, particularly El Topo and The Holy Mountain, and there are moments of such extreme symbolism and color in Santa Sangre to suggest a Mexican botanica come to life, and always with the expert handling that suggests a universe unto itself that’s just inches from our own (the very definition of surrealism).
As someone who spent much time in Mexico and South America growing up, part of my love for Jodorowsky’s films is that they evoke so much familiarity in their landscapes - I’ve never actually seen all of Puerto Nuevo stop dead in its tracks to stage a mass funeral for their local elephant, but the mood, spirit and culture are there enough to where an event like that would almost seem natural. I have never actually seen a barrel-chested man use his knife and chest tattoo as weapons to literally mesmerize a protesting woman, but I do have a Nicaraguan uncle whose own tattoos and weapons have long been symbols of a masculinity to be reckoned with. I have never actually seen an entire pueblo take to near-synchronized festive dance, but Christ have I seem some pueblo-wide hangovers…
There is something that almost feels magical about Santa Sangre, as if Jodorowsky was given a passport to shoot footage of a world that exists behind a great mirror to our own. Something like our world, but with LSD for tap water. As he also showed in The Holy Mountain, he has that skill few filmmakers truly have of painting worlds that feel at once real and unreal (Kubrick and Bunuel come to mind). Finally, he shows a command for music and soundscape that rivals Lynch and Tarantino - his scores were finally remastered and released as part of his recent Films of Jodorowsky box set (in which Santa Sangre is sadly missing), and they truly are marvelous compilations of world music, lush original scores, and circus music idyllic enough to run a chill up your spine. Santa Sangre offers up one great piece of music after another, with even a dark and uncomfortably erotic musical number that is as haunting as it is visually comical.
Santa Sangre is thus far only available in foreign-region DVD’s, and as zero-region bootlegs. I believe there is a stellar 2-Disc version, but only in Region 2 format (here’s to Region Free players!!). Definitely a movie worth hunting down for those who haven’t seen it - it earns recognition as being one of the most Unique films ever made.
2 Comments on “SANTA SANGRE”
Comment:
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June 30th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
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