This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 10: Surreal Horror Night
“My hands…my hands.”
It is hard for me to articulate why the films of avant-garde
director Alejandro Jodorowsky fascinate and captivate me so much even though
many of their defining traits are things that frustrate me in other art films.
His films are strange and surreal, heavy on symbolism, magical realism, and absurd
and grotesque but striking imagery. They are not subtle about their themes or
symbols or attitudes towards politics, or religion, or society in general and aim
to challenge artistic and filmmaking conventions. They are also filled with
tenderness and sincerity. His films can be described as challenging, but
Jodorowsky only means to challenge to audience only up to a point. It feels
like his real intention is to change the way we view movies, art,
and the wider world so that we can challenge those things together. There is no
pretention or condescension in his films, only a welcoming invitation to a new
experience and a new perspective. This is especially true of Santa Sangre,
one of the strangest and most compassionate films I have seen.
Santa Sangre isn’t exactly a horror film, but it
isn’t exactly any other kind of film either. There is violence, drama, humor, cruel
characters, bizarre scenes, psychological horror, even elements of a slasher
film, but also many moments of great emotion and sympathy. All of this is put
together and handled so delicately that it feels like a magic trick.
The film opens with image of a nude man posed like bird
on an oversized perch in a mental institution. In an extended flashback we see
Fenix's traumatic childhood in a circus where he was the boy magician.
His mother, Concha (Blanca Guerra), was the trapeze artist and also the leader of a religious sect that
worships a saint whose arms were cut off by her rapists. His father, Orgo (Guy Stockwell), was the circus owner and knife thrower. He is crude, excessively macho, and having an
affair with the tattooed woman, who is the mother of Fenix’s mute friend, Alma.
One night Concha discovers Orgo's affair and throws acid on Orgo's genitals. He cuts off her arms and
then cuts his own throat. Somehow, despite all of that, the most traumatic
moment of that horrible night is the tattooed woman driving away with Alma in
the backseat, her face against the window looking back at Fenix. They watch each other being separated in a heartbreaking
exchange.
When Fenix, now an adult, is beckoned by his mother, he
escapes from the mental institution. Hiding behind her, he acts as her arms and hands in a stage show and also in their private moments. In these scenes
the actors have so well-choreographed their movements that Concha really does
seem to be controlling his hands and Fenix seems to know beforehand what Concha
wants to do. Concha’s control over Fenix is domineering and somewhat mystical.
Through controlling him psychologically she controls him physically, and this
is how she exacts her revenge.
The first slashing is,
like many things in this movie, a paradox: it is gruesome but also hokey. The victim stands behind a sheer curtain and a knife wielding hand stabbing in a cliched,
mechanical motion. Bodies pile up, but unlike a slasher movie, the kill scenes are
not the crux of the movie. Concha’s desire for complete control over her son
results in any other woman being a threat. The slashings are a result of the horror and trauma Fenix has
suffered and continues to suffer, so he is able to draw our sympathy even though he is also a
murderer.
This is a movie where a funeral march through town square for an
elephant that ends with the elephant corpse being thrown into a canyon were
residents of a shantytown cut it up for food is a footnote to the
actual plot. Fenix paints the body of a victim white and buries her in a grave that glows and a bird rises out. A scene of a group of patients from the institution being taken to
a red-light district with drugs and sex workers actually turns out alright. A
large, muscular trans-woman wrestler turns out to be a gentle soul. Every scene contains something unexpected.
Santa Sangre was written by Jodorowsky, Robero Leoni,
and Claudio Argento (brother of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento). I suppose this is technically a slasher movie, but it is a slasher movie as only Jodorowsky
could make. It doesn’t feel like a traditional horror movie because of its emphasis
on emotion and sympathy for its main character. Adult Fenix is played by Axel Jodorowsky,
Alejandro’s son, and he does an amazing job playing a tortured, conflicted character. He is a
gentle soul and you want desperately for him to be treated as such and be freed
from his trauma. There are horror movies that have strong characters, likeable
characters, characters you root and
cheer for, but I don’t think there is another horror film
that loves its main character as much as Santa Sangre loves Fenix, and that
love is contagious.
So why recommend Santa Sangre for Shocktober if it is not
exactly horror movie? Well, if this movie is a magic trick, then I guess I want
other people to see the trick. Santa Sangre is a dark fairy tale. No
matter how bizarre or surreal, we accept the sights we see because they serve
something more that just the images. Fairy tales use harsh situations and grim
scenarios to teach a simple lesson or moral. So too does Santa Sangre use its
garish, striking, but always memorable imagery and scenarios to convey something
so simple we can only accept it if it is wrapped up in fantasy. At the climax
there is a reveal that may not be a surprise but it is not meant to be. It is a
revelation for Fenix and as such is deeply satisfying. It’s the moment we’ve
been waiting for. What a unique character study. What a gentle and loving
movie. The world is cruel and there are cruel people but kindness and love can
still exist and we need not be cruel to ourselves; that only leads back to
cruelty to others. This is a beautiful film, a reaction I’ve had only a handful
of times.
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