DANCE OF REALITY/ LA DANZA DE LA REALIDAD

France/ Chile, 2013, 133 minutes, Colour.

Brontis Jodorwosky, Pamela Flores, Jeremias Herskovits Aleandro Jodorowsky, Bastian Bodenhofer, Andres Cox, Adan Jodorowsky, Axel Jodorowsky.
Directed by Aleandro Jodorowsky.


Dance of Reality was a surprising return to films by Chilean Director Aleandro Jodorowsky who made such an impact in the 1970s with his surrealistic film, El Topo, 1970. He continued his realistic/surrealistic films, full of fantasy, imagination and symbols, echoes of the psychedelic age in which they were made. Later films included Holy Mountain, 1973, and Santa Sangre, 1980. With a gap of twenty four years, he attempted to make a film version of Frank Herbert’s Dune. A very interesting documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, 2013, fills in something of the background of his career as well as a portrait of the director.

This film is the first part of his imaginative autobiography on film. It was followed three years later by a look at the second part of his life, Endless Poetry.

The director himself appears in this film even though it is his autobiography. As a young boy, aged eight, he is portrayed by Jeremias Herskovits. But, at various times, the older director, as himself, appears along with the boy, a kind of mentor.

Jodorwosky’s father migrated from Ukraine, a staunch Communist, admirer of Stalin. He is played by the director’s son, Brontis. With his wife, who looks like an opera singer and whose dialogue is all sung, they settled in Chile in Tocopilla. The father is involved as a merchant in the town but is very strict on his son, considering him effeminate, wanting him to toughen up, inflicting pain on him, including a visit to the dentist without anaesthetic, the boy coming through it all and his father ultimately admiring him.

There are various symbolic sequences with the boy, bullying, anti-Semitic prejudice against him, his encounter with various, one might say, grotesques – in the Federico Fellini vein and this film could be compared with Fellini’s Amacord.

The second part of the film focuses on the father himself, the political situation in Chile in the mid 1930s, and attempted assassination of the president and the father’s involvement but, in fact, thwarting the attempt and his finding himself with a job on the President’s farm, looking after his favourite horse, Bucephalus – which he poisons.

The father has a breakdown, loses his memory, but his wife and son continue to believe he is alive and send a stone on the balloon which lands on his hut and wakes him and restores his memory. He returns, but not without an encounter with aggressive Nazis.

The latter part of the action is not based on fact but on the director’s imagination.

Essential viewing, of course, for those interested in Jodorowsky’s career.

1. The impact of the film, visually, thematically, the biography of the director?

2. Jodorowsky and his career? The autobiography, his childhood focus?

3. The title?

4. Jodorowsky and his films, the range of images, realism and surrealism, the importance of images and fantasy? Cumulative effect?

5. The director’s biography, his father born in the Ukraine, the Jewish background, Communist background, the picture of Stalin? His mother and father migrating to Chile? His being born in Chile? Born in the year of the Wall Street crash? The experience of the Depression? His father, the shop, social activities? His mother, strong woman, buxom – and all her dialogue in singing?

6. The boy at eight years old, the 1930s? Chile, the President, the background of fascism in the 1930s, Franco in Spain? Oppression, citizens revolting? The groups, the demonstrations? The role of the police and military?

7. The father and his attitude towards his son? The father in himself, his life, relationship with his wife, treatment of his wife, customers, the store, fellow workers? Thinking his son was too soft, removing his hair? Toughening him up? The infliction of pain, willpower, the son and his stoic response? Hitting him? The visit to the dentist and no anaesthetic? His father admiring him? The other boys and the bullies? His mother and her maternal approach, the singing, her care?

8. Issues of God and his father asking his son whether he believed in God? His explanations of God? The father and pride in his son? The fire brigade? The boy becoming the mascot? The fires, the danger, imagining himself in the casket, his collapse? Burning his clothes? A reason for his father wanting him to be tough?

9. The boy, the other children, defying them, brave? Anti-Semitic? stances? Ridiculing the boy’s nose? The encounter with the dwarfs? With the mine amputees? With the Theosophist, strange presence, meditation? The drunk and his attitude towards the throwing of stones into the water?

10. The director appearing on screen, with his younger self, his own son portraying his father? The tableaux with the boy? Care? The importance of his memories on film?

11. Father, the infected people, with the water, infected, returning to the town, people’s reaction, his wife? The cure?

12. Second part of the film focusing on the father? His status as a Communist? Reputation in the town? With the other radicals and their influence?

13. The decision to assassinate the President? The political situation in Chile? Going to the town, the comedy of the dog ‘best in show’? The attempt on the president’s life, the father and the issue of the gun, interpreted as rescuing the President?

14. The offer of the job, going to the farm, the man with the horses, retiring, the father getting the job? Bucephalus the favourite of the president? The father poisoning him? The
president and the death of his horse?

15. The father, the injuries, his hand? Loss of memory? Coming out of the coma?

16. The mother and son, their fears, the mother knowing her husband was alive? The boy and the dark? The balloon, the stone, into the air, its a landing, waking the father? His memory? His arms and the colours of the flag? His return?

17. The encounter with the Nazis, the confrontation, the torture, the defiance? His leaving?

18. The end of phase one of Jodorowsky’s autobiography? The next film: Endless Poetry?