SANTA SANGRE

Mexico, 1989, 123 minutes, Colour.
Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell, Thelma Tixou, Adan Jodorowsky.
Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Santa Sangre is considered a masterpiece of cinema, surrealist cinema, by many critics and audiences. However, it is very demanding, not only in plot, but also in its graphic presentation of violence as well as its exploration of the human psyche and of madness and cruelty.

The director himself, Aleandro Jodorowsky, made very few films. However, he had a very active life in mime, with Marcel Marceau, with theatre, with film, with cartoons and graphic novels (and even becoming a minister of religion to celebrate the wedding for Marilyn Manson in 2005). All these elements can be seen in Santa Sangre. Many people comment on its relationship to other films ranging from Freaks to Psycho, the influence of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali as well as the work of Federico Fellini and his presentation of clowns, circuses and grotesques.

Commentators also point out the visual poetry of so much of the film – indicating that Jodorowsky, not a modest man but who claimed his works were masterpieces, have an extraordinary range of cinematic elements which are significant for the history and development of cinema.

This film is more accessible to mainstream audiences than his other films, especially his cult film El Topo and Holy Mountain (1970 and 1973). This film shows the character of Fenix, his childhood and his mother and her worship of the sect of the armless goddess, Santa Sangre. It shows her husband and his relationships with women, his vengeance on his wife by cutting off her arms, his killing himself – all having an effect on the young boy who later, on release from an institution, meets his mother again, becomes her arms as he puts his arms in her sleeves and she becomes a knife-thrower – bent on revenge for what she has suffered.

Santa Sangre is a film for film buffs as well as film historians.

1. The work of Alexander Jodorowsky, his particular sensibilities, the influence of mime, the influence of his work in theatre, the traditions of horror, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Federici Fellini, Hitchcock? Violence? The Latin American sensibility? Interest in themes, violence, religion, revenge?

2. The Latin American sensibility, the film from Mexico? The Latin American cities, the circus, the clubs, the city squares, homes? On the road? Jodorowsky’s use of colour, vivid and bright? The religious themes? The musical score, the songs?

3. The title and expectations? The focus on blood? Whose? How the blood was shed? Sacred blood, the consequences?

4. The horror movie influence, The Hands of Orlac, Circus of Horrors, the slasher movies, mime, dreams, Grand Guignol? The horror sensibilities?

5. The character of Fenix, the phoenix and its rising again? Fenix as an adult, naked, on the branch? Eating, the fish? The introduction of the Christ symbolism? The staff of the institution? The symbol of the eagle, flying and seeing? The town, the circus, the therapy?

6. The city and its people, the fiesta, the role of the circus? Orgo as the gringo? His size, leering, the eagle, the tattoo? Concha as his wife, mother of Fenix? The kind of circus they lived in, the role of the clowns, acrobats? The tattoos and cruelty? The nude woman? Fenix and his place in the circus? The gentleman? Life, the funeral of the elephant, the eagle tattoo?

7. The owner of the circus, the demolition? Concha and her sect, her dress, the temple? The monsignor and his attitude towards the sect? The blood, the story, the history of Saint Maria Goretti? Painting, madness? Fenix and his mother? The return home, the bond of mother and son, seeing Orgo and the tattooed woman, the sexual violence, hatred and madness?

8. The performance, hair, jealousy? Concha and the acid on Orgo and the woman? Orgo and his slashing the arms, slitting his throat, Fenix seeing this, its effect?

9. Fenix and the young girl, mute, released? Mad? Fenix and his experience of touch? The movies, Robinson Crusoe? The drugs, sexuality, finding the tattooed woman, the escape?

10. The tattooed woman, performance, seductive, Concha and her vengeance? The cruelty?

11. The adult Fenix, with his mother, their performance, his arms for hers, the skill at knife-throwing? Genesis, live? The bed and the nightmares? The piano, Dracula, the slashing, the tattooed woman? The dwarf? The big wrestler? The attraction, the theatre? Fight to the death? Finding the girl, her being willing? The arms, the hands and the killing? The puppet, the decaying house?

12. The pills and the girl in the trailer? The visit, the police, hands up? Alma and the bird flying away?

13. Aladdin, support, vanishing?

14. Alma and the symbolism of the soul, the orphan? The importance of the tattoo? The soldiers, the rape, the bottle, fleeing?

15. The overall impact of the film in terms of plot, characterisation? In terms of themes and exploration? In terms of avant-garde cinema and effects? In terms of the poetic possibilities of the visual cinema and the poetry of sound?