Unclean & Unseen! – Alejandro Jodorowsky’s SANTA SANGRE (1989)

I hallucinated last week, folks. It’s not something I do frequently, but I was in the thick of my very first ‘lucha libre’-style wrestling match with COVID-19. Though even my illnesses can’t arrive fashionably on time (“You have Covid? That’s so 2020!”), the notion aligns nicely for a man running a retrospective blog that’s today highlighting one of the most experimental filmmakers of our time, a perversely crazy demi-genius by the name of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

A 95-year-old Chilean who’s been making films since the late 1950s, Jodorowsky rose to prominence in the 1970s with avant-garde offerings such as EL TOPO (1970) and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973). The director quickly cemented his place in midnight movie history, becoming synonymous with heady blends of hallucinatory, religious, violent, and erotic imagery in the spirit of such surrealist film pioneers as Luis Buñuel.

SANTA SANGRE may be a bit more cohesive and straightforward from a narrative sense than Jodo’s earlier and more widely-known works, but it’s no less astonishing. Commanding a sense of color like few other directors can, he is able to ingratiate a troupe of circus performers to his audience through a visual mix of psychotropic theatricality and earth-bound grotesquerie. All things are normalized in a Jodorowsky film; here, elephant funerals, children forced into being tattooed, and coked-up Down Syndrome patients on the search for hookers are in their proper places in this world. The sacred and the profane are braided forever into one. There are no ‘freaks’ in our universe, you see–all are family. If you don’t have any family, some will be assigned to you.

I feel the less I tell you about the plot the better, which comes in very handy here because, much like every other Jodo film, an explanation takes longer than the experience itself. Simply put as possible, the narrative follows a boy into manhood, where he eventually crushes under the weight of parental influence. The film dances with the dueling notions of control versus fulfilling fate’s prophecy, whether you do it yourself or, ironically, have someone force it on you. Ultimately, we are witness to a curious study in trauma, continually questioning who’s the victim of it, who can atone for it, and what dangers arise from using grief as a false idol.

Don’t just watch SANTA SANGRE. Taste it. Smell it. Wrap your arms around it, and never let it go.

#unclean&unseen #santasangre #alejandrojodorowsky #eltopo #theholymountain #luisbunuel #surrealism #midnightmovies