IO9 Review Santa Sangre
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(Created page with "====Santa Sangre==== 1989<br> dir Alejandro Jodorowsky ''Santa Sangre'' is a 1989 Mexican/Italian surrealist thriller directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and starring his son Axel...") |
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Enraged at having his genitals burned with acid, Orgo pins his wife to an American flag motif'd knife-throwing target and lops off her arms before stumbling into the courtyard and slitting his own throat. Enraged at having her genitals burned with acid and her lover driven to suicide, the Tattooed Woman leaves the circus, taking Alma with her. | Enraged at having his genitals burned with acid, Orgo pins his wife to an American flag motif'd knife-throwing target and lops off her arms before stumbling into the courtyard and slitting his own throat. Enraged at having her genitals burned with acid and her lover driven to suicide, the Tattooed Woman leaves the circus, taking Alma with her. | ||
| − | After this operatic juvenalia menstrata, the film returns to the present and the subtlety really kicks into high gear. Fenix escapes from the hospital and together with his now armless mother creates a new stage act called "Concha And Her Magic Hands," in which Fenix acts as her arms as she recounts the story of the creation of Adam and the Fall from Paradise. | + | After this operatic ''juvenalia menstrata'', the film returns to the present and the subtlety really kicks into high gear. Fenix escapes from the hospital and together with his now armless mother creates a new stage act called "Concha And Her Magic Hands," in which Fenix acts as her arms as she recounts the story of the creation of Adam and the Fall from Paradise. |
Yup, nothing weird about that. Fenix, completely in the thrall of his mother's mind control, has also taken to stabbing every woman he runs across, starting with the Tattooed Woman, who has now set up shop pimping her unwilling daughter out to the local constabulary. | Yup, nothing weird about that. Fenix, completely in the thrall of his mother's mind control, has also taken to stabbing every woman he runs across, starting with the Tattooed Woman, who has now set up shop pimping her unwilling daughter out to the local constabulary. | ||
| − | Santa Sangre is a cavalcade of Jungian archetypes and Catholic sexual ideation which draws heavily from Fellini, Hitchcock, Sergio Leone and Marcel Marceau. Whether you consider it to be a richly profound tapestry or an insufferably pretentious mess will likely be determined by your point of view on sin. | + | ''Santa Sangre'' is a cavalcade of Jungian archetypes and Catholic sexual ideation which draws heavily from Fellini, Hitchcock, Sergio Leone and Marcel Marceau. Whether you consider it to be a richly profound tapestry or an insufferably pretentious mess will likely be determined by your point of view on sin. |
| − | The premise of the sex-as-sin school of thought is that we, humanity, have been distorted by sex. Our defiance in the Garden of Eden has turned us into warped, funhouse reflections of what we were intended to be. Like Tod Browning's Freaks, Santa Sangre illustrates this point by showing us a raw, animalistic sexuality that pervades every character, including those who fall outside the biological norm. | + | The premise of the sex-as-sin school of thought is that we, humanity, have been distorted by sex. Our defiance in the Garden of Eden has turned us into warped, funhouse reflections of what we were intended to be. Like Tod Browning's ''Freaks'', ''Santa Sangre'' illustrates this point by showing us a raw, animalistic sexuality that pervades every character, including those who fall outside the biological norm. |
| − | Jodorowsky is the anti-Cronenberg. Where the existential Cronenberg reduces human complexity to biological destiny, Jodorowsky infuses every living corner of nature with human notions of good and evil. Throughout Santa Sangre we see the cycle of life, sex, reproduction, maturity and death not as being under threat from evil, but constituting it. Consider the funeral of Fenix's elephant friend (warning: graphic). | + | Jodorowsky is the anti-Cronenberg. Where the existential Cronenberg reduces human complexity to biological destiny, Jodorowsky infuses every living corner of nature with human notions of good and evil. Throughout ''Santa Sangre'' we see the cycle of life, sex, reproduction, maturity and death not as being under threat from evil, but constituting it. Consider the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZmw10CT-Q|funeral of Fenix's elephant friend] (warning: graphic). |
The pachyderm's casket is paraded through the town and dumped into a ravine where it is set upon by the poor starving humans who have also been similarly cast away. | The pachyderm's casket is paraded through the town and dumped into a ravine where it is set upon by the poor starving humans who have also been similarly cast away. | ||
| − | Or this scene where Fenix and a group of hospital residents with Down | + | Or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZmw10CT-Q|this] scene where Fenix and a group of hospital residents with Down Syndrome take a field trip to see a film about Robinson Crusoe and end up snorting coke and visiting an obese prostitute instead (warning: not kidding.) |
| − | The choice of Robinson Crusoe is of course no accident. The world of Santa Sangre is populated by castaways, the wretched refuse, the misfits of society, the unworthy in the sight of God, the forgotten, the depraved, the abandoned and the unloved. It is Hell, old school traditional non-Sartre Hell, on Earth. Every corner of Santa Sangre seems to be populated by something that pokes us in the uncomfortable corners of the collective unconscious. Fenix and Concha's morning ritual alone is enough to undo twenty years worth of Freudian psychotherapy | + | The choice of Robinson Crusoe is of course no accident. The world of ''Santa Sangre'' is populated by castaways, the wretched refuse, the misfits of society, the unworthy in the sight of God, the forgotten, the depraved, the abandoned and the unloved. It is Hell, old school traditional non-Sartre Hell, on Earth. Every corner of ''Santa Sangre'' seems to be populated by something that pokes us in the uncomfortable corners of the collective unconscious. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3lovrNoxwY|Fenix and Concha's morning ritual] alone is enough to undo twenty years worth of Freudian psychotherapy. |
Sadly, for all this rich symbolism, there is almost no sense of character. Alma is a deaf mute who seems to have no desires or interests of her own and while Fenix can technically hear and speak, he doesn't seem to put those talents to any sort of character-developing use. | Sadly, for all this rich symbolism, there is almost no sense of character. Alma is a deaf mute who seems to have no desires or interests of her own and while Fenix can technically hear and speak, he doesn't seem to put those talents to any sort of character-developing use. | ||
