Santa Sangre

(translation from Italian) In these days, Santa Sangre is back on the screens in a copy restored in 4k in the original version for the 30th anniversary of its release. Many have asked me to review it, but I can't do it because, first of all I wrote it together with Alessandro Jodorowsky and therefore it would seem to me not very polite and professional to praise me or to criticize me because then in a possible critical judgment today I could also be very bad towards myself... Beyond the jokes, what I can do instead it's telling the genesis of the film, without spoiling it and without weaving neither praise nor criticism, but leaving them both to the judgment of the spectators, above all new spectators, because it is a cult movie and has gone through 30 years unscathed. Even the famous GB magazine Empire has included it among the 500 best films of all time... Beyond this exaggeration, it can be interesting just how the film was born and meanwhile special thanks goes to Claudio Argento, the "crazy" producer, wonderfully crazy, because he believed in this story and produced it. The first idea of this film has a distant origin. I attended university working in the library of a psychiatric hospital and I was in contact with the so-called madness, with mental illness, I saw it up close, I read the medical records, I prepared texts for some degree theses... Obviously I have no competence as a psychologist or as a psychiatrist, however, I also followed humanly life of some patients because I was part of therapy program which taught painting and theatre and also another ergotherapy program, that is, work therapy, which offered to the patients the possibility of doing small jobs allowing them to take off their uniform, because then patients were in uniform. Take off their uniform and attend the library meant that in the eyes of a stranger they were treated like normal people. During the program I had some patients that apparently were very quiet, and they were also very cultured and prepared. In fact, this experience made me understand that schizophrenia is often proper a "degeneration of intelligence", in fact, very often schizophrenics are very clever, very sensitive and very attentive. One of these patients, who worked with me because he knew 3 or 4 languages so he could help me sort the books, because the library had 50,000 volumes of all types and ages, one day started looking sideways and saying: "... 'shut up ...' shut up ..." The third time I asked him what happened and he answered me calmly with his calm blue eyes: "No, nothing, I have a voice that tells me to kill you, but don't worry because I love you. " I was a little uncomfortable, but he reassured me: "No, no, don't worry, I love you, I don't listen to it... " Continuing to stare at me with his blue eyes and I was, as far as I could be, calm. The library was very extensive because there were five very large rooms for the 50,000 volumes and it was me and him alone, isolated on a high floor of this immense palace. And I trusted. I trusted his blue eyes, I trusted him his sincere way of telling me "I love you". Probably this episode, like a small seed, has yielded within my psychology, giving me a sense of confidence, giving me a sense of equality and above all a sense of brotherhood even with mental distress. I found Abel in what might have seemed Cain and this fact so ancestral and so mythical has yielded within me and it is probably the origin of Santa Sangre because over time, I conceived a story in which even the worst demon actually can't forget he is an angel. Whoever saw Santa Sangre knows that the character I wrote together with Alejandro Jodorowsky is a serial killer, but every time he kills you feel sorry for him that is you are sorry more for him than for the victim just to completely overturn the concept of the brute, of the violent, of the monster, but returning almost to the Latin root 'monstrum', that is, something to see, a curious thing to discover. Because the human soul is an infinite gallery of typologies, it is a very deep mine in which, as the famous verses of De Andrè say: "... nothing comes from diamonds, but from the manure the flowers are born... " That is, there is in the depths of the soul, even the most horrendous soul, this incredible ability, this little spark... Over time I have developed a story that I told Claudio Argento because it was a time when we worked together. Claudio understood this story and indeed he even added to it things he thought and together we decided to present it to the director who seemed the most suitable to represent it that is Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky for about ten years seemed to have disappeared from the international scenes, but Claudio with great diligence and a lot of skill found him and talked to his agent. Alejandro made an appointment in Paris, but he wanted to meet only me. We didn't understand why, but he said: "I want to meet who wrote this story" I went to meet Alejandro in Paris and in the entrance hall of his agent's building, while I was going to take the elevator, an elegant man has sprung from the shadows, curious, particular, completely dressed in purple: he also had purple shoes, a purple shirt, the purple tie, he was completely purple. And he said to me: "Oui, c'est moi ..." So, I saw Alejandro for the first time. He didn't want to go to the agent because it was a place of merchants, instead he told me: "Let's go to a bar, let's look at each other and talk" The first thing he asked me was: "When did you write this story?" "About a year ago ..." "When exactly?" "I do not remember..." Then, I remembered that my daughter had a fever and I was telling her stories, then I went to my study, an idea had occurred to me and I started to throw that one down which was the first nucleus of Santa Sangre. Then I said: "It should have been March 29." "What time did you write it?" "Around half past one or two in the morning ..." "I knew it... ...that night I went to sleep early and the angel of stories has passed over Paris to bring me a story, saw that I slept and continued to Rome, saw that you were awake and gave you the story. But the story was mine and you are a thief! " "But Alejandro, I invented it ..." "No, you are a thief, 'tu es un voleur' ..." And since then he called me 'ce voleur là', 'that thief there' referring to me. This is a very beautiful story because you can understand how every artist in reality has the ability, when he likes something, to take it, to feel it and to think that he really conceived it. Then, Alejandro developed this story with his imagination and his art, also telling me an episode occurred in Mexico City which in some respects had similar characteristics and together we wrote the script by which he then made the film that we all know.

This is truly a shocking film crammed with bizarre and grotesque violence both explicit and lurking beyond the 'five-senses perception'.A sick masterpiece by a sick genius.Santa Sangre evolves into the strange universe of its creator ,Alejandro Jodorowsky.This is not at least surprising because most of his works:films (El Topo etc.),comics (The cast of the Metabarons,Inkal etc.)etc etc,are pieces of the very same puzzle,Alejandro's universe.

Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) is a pure surrealistic work.Symbols,insanity, Life and Death mix up the wild beauty of Ancient Greek Tragedy.In conclusion: this is not a film for everyone,but if you are open minded you will be able to make a step further,beyond the image itself and face the deep brutal truth of this movie.This is how it would look like a movie shot by Salvator Dali himself.

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.

There's so much you can say about this work. Vivid characters, colours, and situations that practically leap off the screen into the theatre next to you. A wonderfully quirky, repeatedly startling story. Graceful low-key cinematography that turns slums and sideshows into an eerily beautiful netherworld, countless images that look like you could freeze them and hang them as inspirational totems for cults we have to hope don't exist. Jodorowsky paints with a heavy, vibrant brush, but it's the perfect tone for this primal-yet-humanizing tale.

But I should post a warning. As far as I'm concerned, my first viewing of this film was one of the more worthwhile two hours or so I've ever spent in a theatre, and I think based on my experience that this sadly neglected wonder deserves every bit of word-of-mouth promotion it can get. But I'm betting it's not to everyone's taste.

So this is my advice: if you found Storaro's green and red/jungle foliage and human remains canvasses in Apocalypse Now unsettlingly beautiful the first time you saw them, and wondered momentarily whether still prints were available for hanging before realizing what you were actually suggesting to yourself, here's a film for you. If you found Delicatessan's celebration of the paradoxical beauty hiding in human ugliness and stupidity a bit too sanitized for your taste, Santa Sangre's rather murkier depths await. You will love this work.

If, on the other hand, you have no taste for painters who work best in human blood as opposed to oils, and/or don't appreciate a bloody carnality mixed in with your religious metaphor, you will quite probably hate it with a passion that exceeds my affection. And I don't really blame you or judge you for walking out early. It takes all kinds.

Either way, fondly or with revulsion, you will remember it vividly, ten years later. I can say this confidently, as that's how long it was from the first time I saw this film to the day I wrote this review. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I saw the U.S. premiere of this movie at the DC FilmFest. I was intrigued by the thought of a man who makes movies once every 15 years.

Well, I'll tell you. The people sitting next to me left 10 - 15 minutes into the movie. If you can get through the first 30 minutes, it is worthwhile.

Of course, I am into very surrealistic movies and ones that address the question of what is real and what is not.

After seeing it, the visuals have stayed with me over the years. A powerful movie for the adventurous.