Santa Sangre

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Movie
Original title Santa sangre
Country of production Mexico , Italy
original language English
Publishing year 1989
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 16 (formerly 18)
Rod
Director Alejandro Jodorowsky
script Alejandro Jodorowsky, Roberto Leoni , Claudio Argento
production Claudio Argento
music Simon Boswell
camera Daniele Nannuzzi
cut Mauro Bonanni
occupation

Santa Sangre ( German : Holy Blood ) is a surreal horror film by the Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky from 1989. Jodorowsky wrote the screenplay together with Roberto Leoni and the producer Claudio Argento .

action

The boy Fenix ​​lives with his parents in a circus , where he performs as a “young magician”. His father Orgo is a rabid American who likes to indulge in alcohol, his mother Concha works as a trapeze artist and is a fanatical leader of the faith community of the Holy Blood ( Santa Sangre ). One day, their church is bulldozed to the ground after a monsignor ruled that the worship of an armless saint was heretical . Meanwhile, Fenix ​​meets the deaf and dumb girl Alma, with whom he befriends. During a circus performance, the jealous Concha realizes her husband is flirting with the latest circus attraction, the tattooed woman. She follows the two and attacks them with sulfuric acid before they can sleep together. The angry Orgo cuts off both arms of Concha with throwing knives and, seriously injured, slits his own throat. While the tattooed woman disappears with Alma, Fenix ​​has to watch the death of his father.

A good ten years later, the traumatized Fenix ​​is living in a mental hospital . At an exit, he happened to recognize the tattooed woman on the street . Back in his cell, he becomes aware of the calls from his mother, who is waiting for him in front of the building. On the same night, the tattooed woman receives a visit from three suitors in her shabby apartment, which she lives with Alma . One of them tries to assault Alma, whereupon she manages to escape. A short time later, the tattooed woman is struck down by a stranger (as it turns out later, it is Fenix) with several knife stabs. The armless Concha now appears as "Concha and Her Magic Hands" ("Concha and her magic hands") in a variety theater . Fenix ​​stands behind his mother and puts his arms around her, giving the impression that they are her own. Fenix ​​also has to give his mother's hands in this way privately. For example, he plays the piano for her or knits. She also lets him build a shrine for the saint of Santa Sangre. Time and again, Concha takes possession of her son and lets him commit murders of various women whom she sees as competition. Fenix ​​is ​​then plagued by nightmares and hallucinations . Only when Alma finds their house can he resist his mother's lust for murder and instead stab her in the body with a knife. Concha disappears with the words “You will never be free from me. I am very deep inside you. ”Then Fenix ​​and Alma find a ventriloquist dummy that looks like his mother and burn it in the house. Through a flashback , the viewer learns that Concha had already died when she lost her arms. The film ends with the fade-in of two Bible psalms :

I stretch out my hands to thee:
my soul thirsts for thee like a
parched land ...
Teach me the way I should go
for to thee I lift up my soul.

(Psalms 143, 6, 8)

I spread
my hands to you: My soul thirsts for you like a
languishing land ...
Show me the way that I should go,
because I lift my soul to you.

( Psalms 143, 6, 8)

reception

The film premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1989 in the Un Certain Regard category . In the USA the film was shown for the first time in selected cinemas in March 1990, in Germany in January 1991.

The film was nominated for seven Saturn Awards in 1991 and won one of them. Adan Jodorowsky received the award for the best young actor for his portrayal of the young Fenix. The film received further nominations in the categories of Best Horror Film , Best Director , Best Music , Best Lead Actor , Best Lead Actress and again Best Young Actor (for Faviola Elenka Tapia ).

Reviews

The film received mostly positive reviews when it was released. Roger Ebert awarded 4 out of 4 stars and praised Santa Sangre as a versatile work:

“ Calling Santa Sangre a horror film would be unfair to a film that is out of all categories. In addition to its profound qualities, however, it is a horror film, one of the best, and after patiently enduring countless dead teenage films, Alejandro Jodorowsky reminds me that true psychological horror is possible on screen - horror, poetry, Surrealism, psychological pain and obscure humor, all at once. "

The lexicon of international films judged the film more ambiguously and summarized it as an "orgiastic-sadistic family tragedy about panic nightmares of a child in the South American circus world":

“A game that consciously excludes normality with spectacular violence between (in) guilt, atonement and cruelty. Staging attractive Oedipus design with plagiarism exhibited diverse means, but without artistic seriousness and historical-self-critical perspective. "

In the IMDb film database , the film received an average rating of 7.7 out of 10 points. The Rotten Tomatoes website has a score of 85% based on 39 reviews.

Trivia

Santa Sangre was filmed in Mexico in 1988 with an estimated budget of $ 787,000 .

The circus theme in the first half of the film goes back to Jodorowsky's own childhood. His father had contacts with the circus, which enabled Alejandro to play with lion cubs and ride an elephant through the city.

Three of Jodorowsky's four sons can be seen as actors in the film. While Adan plays the young Fenix, his brother Axel embodies the adult protagonist. Teo Jodorowsky has a supporting role as a pimp.

Producer and co-author Claudio Argento is the younger brother of the Italian horror director Dario Argento , whose cinematic oeuvre is particularly reminiscent of the bloody knife murder scene in the middle of the film.

One of the locations was the house of the late director Emilio Fernández , an early critic of Jodorowsky, whom he met after the premiere of his debut film Fando y Lis .

The presentation of the story of creation in the context of the variety show was inspired by a pantomime by Marcel Marceau , whose admirers include Alejandro Jodorowsky.

literature

  • –MAERZ– (Axel Estein): Santa Sangre - Mental mixed fabric . In: Splatting Image , No. 4, August 1990.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Santa Sangre . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2003 (PDF; test number: 64 773 V / DVD).
  2. ↑ a b c Santa Sangre in the IMDb. Retrieved November 27, 2015 . (English)
  3. ^ Review by Roger Ebert. Retrieved November 28, 2015 . (English)
  4. ^ Santa Sangre in the Lexicon of International Films. Retrieved December 2, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Santa Sangre at Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 27, 2015 . (English)
  6. ↑ a b Alejandro Jodorowsky in the audio commentary on Fando y Lis . DVD box The films by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Image disturbance 2014.
  7. ↑ End credits to Santa Sangre (1989)