Santa sangre (1989)

Director:

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writers:

Alejandro Jodorowsky (story)
Roberto Leoni (adaptation)

Release Date:

27 June 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen

Plot:

A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child...

Plot Keywords:

Blood | Murder | Suicide | Circus | Knife Thrower

Awards:

1 win & 6 nominations

Cast

Axel Jodorowsky	...	Fenix
Blanca Guerra	...	Concha
Guy Stockwell	...	Orgo
Thelma Tixou	...	The Tattooed Woman
Sabrina Dennison	...	Alma
Adan Jodorowsky	...	Young Fenix
Faviola Elenka Tapia	...	Young Alma
Teo Jodorowsky	...	Pimp
María de Jesús Aranzabal	...	Fat Prostitute (as Ma. De Jesus Aranzabal)
Jesús Juárez	...	Aladin
Sergio Bustamante	...	Monsignor
Gloria Contreras	...	Rubi
S. Rodriguez	...	The Saint
Zonia Rangel Mora	...	Trini
Joaquín García Vargas	...	Box-office Attendant (as Borolas)

Also Known As:

Holy Blood (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for bizarre, graphic violence and sensuality, and for drug content. (edited version)

Runtime:

123 min | 120 min (cut version)

Country:

Mexico | Italy

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

USA:R (1991) (edited version) | USA:Unrated (1990) (rating surrendered) | USA:NC-17 (uncut video version) | South Korea:18 | Italy:VM14 | Australia:R | Canada:18+ (Quebec) (uncut version) | France:-16 | Germany:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | Canada:R (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Company:

Produzioni Intersound

Trivia:

The project was launched when Alejandro Jodorowsky was commissioned to write and direct a film based on real-life Mexican criminal named Gregorio Cárdenas.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the elephant is dying, all the close-ups of its trunk bleeding show the trunk to be clean. All the long shots of the elephant show it's trunk covered in blood.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[Fenix crouches naked atop a tree trunk in his barren asylum room]
Doctor: [enters along with orderlies pushing a food cart] Fenix. Please...
[offers him a normal meal]
Doctor: Eat like a human being.
[pause]
Doctor: [puts the tray back down and offers him a raw fish]
Fenix: [howls]
[jumps down and grabs the fish]
Fenix: Grr!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Features The Invisible Man (1933)

Soundtrack:

Las bicicletas

Unforgettable, but not for everyone

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.