Santa sangre

A very fascinating but disturbing film. Luckily I had the chance to see it in the late-night screening in a small cinema in my city.

The blood in the title reappears in different contexts as theme in the film, from colored water claimed as saint´s blood, over that drained in a tattooing resembling an initiation rite, to that of murdered women. I would not recommend it for people sensitive to such sights. For others it shows that `blood is a very special liquid' in all its metaphysical contexts.

There is some very powerful imagery in this film: a bleeding, dying elephant and its bizarre burial, cut-off arms, white-painted corpses, etc., images that haunt you not because of their goriness but their unique intensity.

The story is based on that of a Mexican mass murderer so I was a bit biased before I went to the cinema, but was surprised when the story unrolled it was not about some ugly, monstrous guy like I expected, but that the protagonist was portrayed as a troubled young man for whom one could have sympathies despite his killings. I won´t summarize the plot once again, just read the summary on this site for that. What made the film especially interesting is that Jodorowsky packs his film full of different motifs: Christian saint´s cult, Freud´s Oedipus complex, the ancient story of Phoenix. As even names are filled with significance in this film it is no coincidence the main character is called Fenix and has an eagle tattooed on his breast. Resembling the ancient myth, Phoenix has to be destroyed first, in this case through freeing his own self from his omnipresent mother figure that holds a grasp on his soul, before he can be reborn again.