Santa Sangre
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| Santa Sangre | |
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| Directed by | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Produced by | Claudio Argento |
| Starring | Axel Jodorowsky Blanca Guerra Sabrina Dennison Adan Jodorowsky Guy Stockwell Thelma Tixou Faviola Tapia |
| Music by | Simon Boswell |
| Cinematography | Daniele Nannuzzi |
| Editing by | Mauro Bonanni |
| Release date(s) | 1989 |
| Running time | 123 min. |
| Country | Italy Mexico |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Santa Sangre is a Mexican-Italian surrealist cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and written by Claudio Argento, Roberto Leoni and Jodorowsky.
[edit] General Storyline *Spoiler Alert*
This film is really the story of a man named Fenix, the film itself starts with a jesus like naked figure sat in a tree, in what looks like a mental asylum. Nurses come out to him bringing him a plate of conventional food and also a plate of bloody raw fish to try and coax him off of his perch, it is of course the fish that persuades him to come out of the tree. As the nurses get him to put on some overalls we see he has a tatoo of a hawk, or eagle carved into his chest.
FLASHBACK
We learn that as a little boy Fenix grew up in a circus that was owned by his Father, Orgo, a tattoo covered, knife throwing strong man. Who was also a womanizer. Fenix's best friend back in the circus was a girl who is both deaf and mute, she is a mime and is always wearing he white face makeup. Fenix finds himself falling in 'love' with this girl. It is here we learn about the hawk tattoo. Orgo the boys father, who, one may believe was really all there in the sanity department, thinks that to initiate his son's journey into manhood he must have a tattoo, and therefore he ruthlessly carves the hawk onto his little son's chest. His nothion that the tattoo would show Fenix's manhood probably stem from the fact that he himself is covered in tattoos that represent to him his manliness.
Fenix's mother who is named Concha is a trapeze artist/aerialist who hangs herself above the ring suspended only by the long locks of her hair. She is also a religious fanatic and leads a cult that worships an armless god whose arms were chopped off by a man who attacked and then raped her. The blood of this saint is called Santa Sangre, literally meaning holy blood, it is stored in a pool in a church, this church is however about to be bulldozed by the authorities. Near the beginning of the film you see the church being pulled down,and at the same time horrendous events take place under the big top.
Whilst the mother is suspended mid-air practising one of her acts, she sees her husband sneak out with a tattooed woman, the mother of the deaf mute. Concha, after first locking the son in a trailer, tracks them down to their place of sin, and stabs the the tattooed lady.She throws acid over Orgo severly maiming him, just before he has time to retaliate and using the tools of his trade, he is after all a knife thrower, hacks off both her arms. He then commits suicide cutting his throat. Being locked in the trailer opposite Fenix witnesses the whole ordeal. As well as watching the tattooed lady run off taking the deaf/mute girl with her.
END FLASHBACK
Back in the present, Fenix, for some obscure reason believes he is a hawk, (probably because of his tattoo; this explains the raw fish and sitting in the tree). When he is on a field trip with the other patients many of whom seem to have Down's Syndrome, he spots the tattoo covered lady who is now a drunken whore and he is consumed with rage, over what happened to his mother and father because of this lady. His armless mother Concha persuades him to escape the asylum, and once out he becomes her vengeful arms. In a bizarre nightclub, they preform an act together where Fenix uses his hands to play piano, by putting them through Concha's sleeves to make it look as though she is a doll that he is making play.
An orgy of bloody murders that begin with the skewering of the tattooed lady follows. Other victims include a cross dressing druggie and a wrestler 'the world's strongest woman' who for her act fights off dozens of male opponents. In a way these murders all represent the role of a person that had a negative impact on the lives of Fenix and Concha. Concha does love her son although her mental instability leads her to show it in strange ways, she is terrirfied of losing him to a woman, just as she lost her husband, therefore when the deaf mute girl reappears she orders Fenix to kill her, however, Fenix isn't able to kill the love of his childhood life.
A bizarre scene in the film shows a dead elephant and scavengers disposing its carcass. At the elephant's funeral it is placed in a grotesquely huge coffin. It is paraded through the streets and then thrown down a rubbish tip, where it is immediately set upon by starving mongoloid children, who break through the coffin and eat the flesh of the dead elephant.
[edit] Trivia
In the scene in the theatre, Axel Jodorowsky recreates, in part, French mime artist Marcel Marceau's Creation of the World, a retelling of the first two chapters of Genesis in mime. Both father and son Jodorowsky had worked with Marceau.
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