Review of Santa Sangre (1989) by Reilly J — 28 Aug 2010

Now here's a film that most of you probably haven't seen.

Santa Sangre or Holy Blood, a film by the multi-talented Alejandro Jodorowsky, who directed such cult films as El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando and Lis.

I didn't like Fando and Lis and I loved El Topo and The Holy Mountain. This I must say topped both of those films.

Whilst The Holy Mountain is a metaphysical Sci-Fi and El Topo is a metaphysical Western this is a metaphysical Horror film. It opens with our protagonist, Fenix, in a mental institution, he refuses to wear clothes or eat like a human, he is in an animalistic state. We flash back to his childhood in which he was a magician in a circus, his father was a knife thrower and his mother was a trapeze artist and was also the minister at the heretical church Santa Sangre where they worship their patron saint who is a young virgin whose arms where cut off by rapists. His best friend was a deaf-mute mime girl and we get a cute little relationship there.

But then we witness the major traumatic experience that results in his institutionalisation, his mother catches his father having an affair with his assistant, and being the religious zealot she is, she punishes him in the ever so macabre way of throwing acid on his man meat, in return he cuts off her arms (how cruelly ironic) then kills himself. The little mime girl is then taken way from him. Pretty fucked up childhood huh? Kinda sounds like one of those macabre Abrabic fairy tales.

Anyway back to the present. After he regains his humanity he escapes from the institution and finds his mother and the circus folk again and unwillingly becomes his mother's hands and is forced to submit to her will.

I think I gotta rank this one among my favourite films of all time. It's a surrealist film that actually makes sense. It offers a Felliniesque commentary on religion, society and the nature of humanity whilst at the same time offers an Argentoesque (the producer/writer is actually Dario Argento's younger brother Claudio Argento) horror film with plenty of eerie scares and lots of bizarre blood and gore.

This one, unlike Jodorowsky's other works, is not a fantasy film, all the strange, surreal, metaphysical imagery is the result of the character's hallucinations, this film is almost realistic (not quite though). Another thing which makes this surrealist picture so good is it's human qualities, one of the things that most surrealist pictures lack is human emotion, but this film has it in spades. I had tears in my eyes during many of the scenes here.

This strange film will never leave your mind, it certainly left me wanting to watch it again and again. Fans of horror, art-house and even grindhouse, this is most definitely a perfect film for you.

It's eerie, scary, enthralling, haunting and touching and I give it 5 out of 5 stars no less.