Review of Santa Sangre (1989) by Ryan J — 13 Jul 2010

Alejandro Jodorowsky should be considered one of the greatest satirists of all time. No, it's not because he overdoes everything. It's mainly for the fact that one of his films, Santa Sangre, poked fun at something we took for granted: religion.

Yeah - the violence is often disturbing, but when you look at it from my viewpoint, Santa Sangre becomes a tale of how religion forces people to do things that we, honestly, don't want to do. For example, all those murders Fenix (Alejandro's son, Axel) committed - don't those remind you of the mindless murders of the Crusades and all those holy wars we claim don't even exist? Another example - the purity of the dead....do we think that just by patronizing somebody who seems innocent, does that guarantee their innocence or do we prefer not to know their maybe decadent life?

If anybody wants to fight for "this film is a strange, strange slasher flick", then fight me. I can name key scenes where the satire is prevalent. It's not humorous satire like Dr. Strangelove or Zelig - it's from a darker sort, like Rushmore, Nashville, A Clockwork Orange, Falling Down, and so on. Just because a crazy armless mother can control her mentally-disturbed son does not mean it's straight-up, Allen Coulter-esque drama that Nicholas Sparks gets pleasure from. Just because its violence is gratuitous does not mean it's a straight up slasher flick - hell, look at Sam Raimi's output!

This, to me, is one of my favorite satires of all time. To go further, one of my favorite black comedies of all time. It's in the top 10 of both genres.

And I'm not kidding. Jodorowsky is an amazing visual director. Thank you for making those acid Westerns back in the day, man. We appreciate it.