Santa Sangre [1990] [DVD]

The DVD transfer is nice, anamorphic with vibrant colors. Don't expect super THX surround sound, but it sounds okay. The 90 minute decumentary is informative and good fun, and it has some pretty mindblowing footage, including video footage from weird 1970's surrealist happenings featuring topless women. And the fairly long time spent on live recordings from Jodorowsky's weekly seminars in Paris on the Tarot deck and self discovery doesn't make him look too much like a weird self-indulgent guru, at least not in my opinion. I thought that it was fairly interesting and charming and funny. There's a also very interesting deleted scene. Unfortunately the soundtrack for this seems to have been lost, but it has a commentary track from Jodorowsky. And no, I haven't sat down and listened to the commentary track for the entire movie yet. Getting through Jodorowsky's broken English can be a bit of an ordeal!! But when I get round to it I'm sure it will be fun even though it will probably make my head hurt a bit. Conclusion: Classic movie! great package! five stars! Nine out of Ten! Two Thumbs up! etc.

The storyline is simple enough, but what sets this film apart from many other "horror" films (I hate to categorise it, as it is more a performative theory than a drive-in classic) is the sheer beauty of the repulsion, the guilt-ridden internal pleasure one feels at being so utterly enthralled by the sight of a knife entering someone's back...

It is this beauty that really makes this transfer to DVD stand out as a necessity, and just goes to show that technology can actually help in delivering deep-red-surreality the way the director sees it in his head... Fellini? Bunuel? Well, I like to ignore imitations, and drop ice down the back of the postmodernists (Jameson has just been done so many times before *groan*) and am able to see beyond the homage to the vision that is uniquely Jodorowsky's. [insert huge futile and possibly violent debate here]

This vision, beautiful juxtaposition that it is, sees brutality emerging from the joy of the circus (some of the most beautifully photographed scenes I know)and eneveloping itself in the gestalt mind of the family, finally leading to redemption, absolution, and, dare I say it, love...

It seems to linger, Santa Sangre does, with one as a pastiche of set-pieces, and this episodic quality again reinforces the dreamlike hyper-surreality Jodorowsky and his "women" seem to inhabit. The elephant scene, for instance, would probably repulse many people, who would find themselves suddenly, and a week later, replaying the scene in their head, picturing it as it is on the screen, as it was in Jodorowsky's mind...This glorious quality is the property of so few films recently (one or two leap to mind, but there they shall stay) that Jodorowsky can truly claim filmic alchemy as one of his arts...

The second disc to me was definitely as good as the movie itself. The feature length documentary "La Constellation Jodorowsky" enhanced this package for me beyond words. Seeing Jodorowsky talk, synaesthetic though it may with the subtitles, is a sheer joy. Finally, this documentary (more a celebration than a mere retrospective) together with the onstage interview with Jodorowsky filmed more recently, carries one away with the spirit of the Jodorowsky, and leaves one almost mournful of the fact that his output has been sparse, and that the pictures he has made are almost impossible to obtain. So, if anybody from Anchor Bay is reading this, you know what to do...

That is all that needs to be said of this film. Buy it, watch it, then really watch it, then watch yourself, and let the cleansing fire wash over Jodorowsky and bless his heart...