Santa Sangre (1989) – Film Review

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Cast: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell
Certificate: 18

By Sarah Morgan

In some ways, you always know what to expect from an Alejandro Jodorowsky movie, but in others, they come as a complete surprise.

The unexpected aspects are the fact that what you’re about see will be visually stunning, will probably fry your brain and leave you baffled for days. The unknown involves the plot – nobody can second guess what will happen next.

That’s certainly the case for Santa Sangre, the Chilean-French avant-garde film-maker’s 1989 movie, made during a period when many thought he had perhaps retired, having only created the children’s film Tusk in the decades since his emergence as a visionary in the early 1970s with El Topo and The Holy Mountain.

“Troubled soul”

According to a fascinating interview with Jodorowsky in this new release, prior to making Santa Sangre, he had been writing comic books to make ends meet, although returning to film-making did not prove lucrative – he claims he’s an artist whose focus is on the work rather than the money it may generate, even paying for items he felt necessary to its success himself.

He was attracted to making the movie because the original screenplay, written by Roberto Leoni, told a similar story to that of reputedly reformed Mexican serial killer Gregorio Cardenas Hernandez, whom Jodorowsky had met in a backstreet bar some years earlier. The film also became a family affair when the auteur cast two of his sons as the troubled soul at the centre of the story – Axel as an adult version, Adan during childhood – while two others, Brontis and Teo, have small roles.

When we first meet him, Fenix is a boy magician working in a circus alongside his parents. A series of disturbing events take place, including the death of an elephant, the loss of his mother’s arms, his father’s suicide and being separated from his best friend, a deaf-mute girl, that leave him so traumatised, he ends up in a psychiatric hospital.

After undergoing treatment, Fenix escapes and is reunited with his mother, and if you think things had been bad for him before that, they’re about to get a whole lot worse…

“Shocking turn of events”

It’s actually quite difficult to write a conventional review of a Jodorowsky movie because they are far from conventional projects. That brief plot makes it sound rather ordinary or mundane, but that’s because it doesn’t take into account the incredible surreal visions depicted throughout, or the shocking turn of events – and to describe either would ruin what lays ahead for those who are yet to witness them.

What can be said, however, is that the cast – made up largely of non-professional actors – is superb. Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston were producer Claudio Argento’s original choices to play the leads, but that would have been an entirely different kind of film. Having unknowns in the leads means we come to it with no preconceived notions, and with Jodorowsky’s vision entirely intact; he will have been free to do whatever he liked, with no interference from A-listers with an image to protect.

Both Axel and Adan Jodorowsky are superb as Fenix; they are also among the interviewees in the special features. Their father claims he can’t watch Santa Sangre as Teo was killed a few years after it was made; Axel has since passed away as well, which must make it doubly difficult for Jodorowsky Sr to view.

For the rest of us, it’s not easy viewing either, but for very different reasons – it is intellectually stimulating and visually haunting. And thanks to this new 4k release, it looks better than ever before.