IO9 Review Santa Sangre
From Jason Shankel's Wiki
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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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZmw10CT-Q | + | 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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZmw10CT-Q | + | 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. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3lovrNoxwY | + | 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. | ||
