La constellation Jodorowsky (1994)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Louis Mouchet

Writer:

Louis Mouchet (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Fantasy Filmmaking | Drama Filmmaking | Interview | Film Making | Filmmaker

Cast

Fernando Arrabal	...	Himself
Peter Gabriel	...	Himself
Alejandro Jodorowsky	...	Himself
Marcel Marceau	...	Himself
Jean Giraud	...	Himself (as Jean 'Moebius' Giraud)
Jean-Pierre Vignau	...	Himself
Louis Mouchet	...	Himself

Also Known As:

The Jodorowsky Constellation (International: English title) (UK) (video title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

Switzerland

Language:

French | English

Certification:

UK:18 | Italy:T (DVD) (self-applied)

Company:

Les Films Grain de Sable

Movie Connections:

References The Rainbow Thief (1990)

Jodorowsky as pleasant, pragmatic, spiritually dense and complex figure in this doc

Alejandro Jodorowsky would be the sort of filmmaker/artist/therapist I might want to have a talk with over a cup of coffee or something about a slew of things he's concerned with- cinema, family, theater, art- but it'd be hard for me to imagine what he would do if I were on a film set with him. He's impulsive, and probably more than a bit crazy, but as one of his old cohorts in abstract art says, he's a disciplined madman with a method to his madness. He sometimes says things that make me think 'what a pretentious guy', like when he says he's hasn't started making films since he's only made six or seven of them. He also replies with a very typical answer for something that's obviously asked as a trick- who are you- with a story of an Emperor in China. But I also think after seeing this that he is a man genuinely happy with his niche in life.

He's created all of these films that have been probably even more important for him than for the audience- even the times of failures like the aborted Dune project or Tusk- and he moved on to a kind of weekly group therapy he conducts where he gets people in touch with their 'family tree' and the problems that arise from past generations, one's parents, and in the end one's self. One sees that he went through an "enlightenement" with The Holy Mountain, and controlled his ego through doing the Rainbow Thief and the Moebius comic books, and even through an overlong treatment of the documentary director, Louis Mouchet, and his familial angst, that he's maybe even wiser than he would admit. Not that one doesn't raise an eyebrow when he deals in tarot cards, or never admits that some things are coincidence or luck (but then again he also never says anything about traditional religious institutions either, as part of the anarchy likely deep within him), but he never comes off dis-genuine, and he's even amusing in some of his telling of tales and conducting of group sessions. I may not precisely know who Jodorowsky is, but I have an idea, which is the best that Mouchet can do at any rate.