Saturday Matinee Film Festival Week 3: Santa Sangre

Well, here we are in November with election day right around the corner and Halloween just over. So why don't we talk about a horror film?

This is the third film on my self-proclaimed Saturday Matinee Film Festival which in the true spirit of 2020 has now gone from weekly to "whenever I can muster the energy." The pacing feels right, though, and I am truly excited about these films and sharing them with all of you. Santa Sangre is Alejandro Jodorowsky's sixth feature film, and my first Jodorowsky. For those not familiar with him, he was a Chilean-French artist, novelist, poet, musician, puppeteer, spiritual guru . . . what wasn't he? I'd say he was a dilettante, but he was actually really, really good at everything. (Minus the spiritual guru thing?) 

Jodorowsky's interest in writing led him to become a published poet at sixteen, followed by studies in philosophy and psychology at university, which was then followed by work as a mime, clown, and playwright in Chile and Paris. Whew. To get an overview of his incredibly full life, Jodorowski's Wiki page is a good place to start. As I was reading about all of his early life escapades, it started to become clearer why he made Santa Sangre, how he was able to make it feel so personal.

I went in to this film intentionally with as little knowledge as possible about its production and plot. Sometimes when I watch something by a new (to me) filmmaker, I do research on their style and the background of the film I'm about to see. This prepared knowledge often gets me into a place where I have preconceptions and a cultivated attitude going into the viewing. I didn't want any of that for Jodorowsky, this larger-than-life figure I had heard so much about in vague descriptions and references to his never-made Dune. 

Instantly, the beginning of Santa Sangre grabbed my attention. It had this weird feel of a south-of-the-border Western, but . . . a dying elephant? Clowns? A religious cult? An insane asylum? What??? And that's all in the first fifteen or twenty minutes. But the boy Fenix, fragile and young who through no choice of his own has been thrown into the life of a circus entertainer - with its strange mysticism, fantastical lifestyle, and mystery - is hypnotic. You empathize with him, want to save him; you're horrified for him, devastated in what he experiences that shapes his life afterwards. 

"I am reminded by Alejandro Jodorowsky that true psychic horror is possible on the screen – horror, poetry, surrealism, psychological pain and wicked humor, all at once." - Roger Ebert 

I don't want this post to be a description of the plot, but rather a reflection on the themes of the film. Roger Ebert deftly outlines the themes here, saying, "I am reminded by Alejandro Jodorowsky that true psychic horror is possible on the screen – horror, poetry, surrealism, psychological pain and wicked humor, all at once."  

And surrealism it is, in the best way. I am transported through the viewing of Fenix's dreams, fantasies, and reality all blurred into a haze of experiences. His life, in many ways so unbearable beyond sanity, has now been restructured by his own devising to a livable, survivable, and nurturing environment. 

Themes of love, loss, hope, obsession, pain, cruelty, and joy abide. Nothing ever seems beyond the scope of experience through the lens of this "horror surrealism". It moved me, startled me, made me weep, and at the end, rejoice with Fenix that he has found freedom from his self-created prison. 

A mind-f*ck? Absolutely. But you'll come out the other side with new emotional experiences you might never have had before.   


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