The Beautiful Chaos or How I Met Jodorowsky

(this is a review that I wrote for the magazine We Are the Weather, check it out here: http://blog.wearetheweather.org/?p=87)

Talking about Alejandro Jodorowsky nowadays doesn't make you sound smarter than average, or a cult snob like maybe back in the day, mostly due to the fact that his films are finally getting out there.

He and ABKCO (his distribution company) in recent times came to an agreement over the rights of his movies, or at least some of the most known films. They released a deluxe DVD box-set which included: La Cravatte (inspired in Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads), Fando y Lis, La Montaña Sagrada (The Holy Mountain), and El Topo. It is really a shame that Santa Sangre was not included, but who knows what the deal must be for the rights of that movie, granted that the producer was Claudio Argento (the brother of Dario Argento, master of the horror genre).

Let me talk a little bit more on how I first met Jodorowsky’s films. I was probably starting college and a friend of mine asks me: “Do you know where to get El Topo?” And me being me, I didn’t want to look stupid saying I didn’t even know what El Topo was, so I quickly looked it up on the internet only to find a few references on what this movie was. Being asked about this obscure film and where to get it, made me think I was perceived as a connoisseur of cult films, which I wasn’t. But in the later years I started to become somewhat of a connoisseur (more aficionado) of obscure, cult, and weird films.

A couple of years went by and I started looking up Jodorowsky’s work in general, and to my surprise I found an amazing book called Teatro Pánico (Panic Theater), which is more or less the manifesto of the Panic artistic movement. Founded by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor, the Panic movement was highly influenced by Surrealism (the cinema of Luis Buñuel) and the Cruelty Theater of Antonin Artaud. They formed this movement back in Paris at a café in ’62 and started doing chaotic, provocative, explosive performance art in presentations that had many similarities to his first films; there is specially a scene in Fando y Lis where several British-looking men are chasing the young Lis, I felt as if I was reading the Panic Theater or maybe the Bald Singer by Ionesco, which portrays many of those images of the bourgeoisie with the nuttiness of surrealism.

Thinking back about Fando y Lis, it had an outrageous effect on the audience at the Acapulco Film Festival back in ’68, with Jodorowksy being accused of corruptor, vampire, and provocateur. He had to leave the screening of the film hidden in the floor of a car for fear of being lynched. The Mexican government confiscated the print of the film and banned it for future screenings, and had serious plans for deporting Jodorowsky.

In more recent times, I’ve had the joy to watch restored prints of El Topo and La Montaña Sagrada (Holy Mountain). Earlier this year these two films’ restored prints started touring around the US in select theater, lucky me that The Loft Cinema in Tucson was among the chosen ones.

This was truly an amazing experience, seeing these films for the first time in celluloid is breathtaking, I think everybody who is interested in Jodorowsky should get the amazing opportunity of experiencing this in film, because you know, the DVD is pretty good, but never compares to the film experience.

Not so surprisingly, just about when this tour ended the DVD box-set was released, although it had been already available for pre-order at a bargain price, taking into account that the set included the original soundtrack for El Topo and The Holy Mountain in a shiny CD, that and the fact that as soon as it was officially released the price went up like 30 or 40 percent.

There are a couple more films he made after these masterpieces which people mostly regard as his duds, but I don’t have a word on that because I have not watched them. There had been rumors these past couple years about Jodorowsky making a film called King Shot, which at first sounded bogus because there was not a reliable source to confirm the story, there were even supposedly leaked pieces of storyboard for the movie, but nothing confirmed. Well I’m happy to tell you that is now in production and it’s due to be released somewhere in 2009, one confirmed cast member is Marilyn Manson, who was once married to Dita Von Teese, guess who officiated the wedding… Jodorowsky.

I think that Jodorowsky leaves us a great legacy in his films, challenging us to be more chaotic and violent as a path towards peace and beauty.

“Terrible things, beautiful things go together”
“If art is not a medicine for the society, is a poison”

- Alejandro Jodorowsky

Additional information:

Official Jodorowsky’s website:
http://www.clubcultura.com/clubliteratura/clubescritores/jodorowsky/index.htm

Official ABKCO Films website:
http://www.abkcofilms.com/index.php

Alejandro Jodorowsky in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Jodorowsky

Panic Manifest
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifiesto_P%C3%A1nico (Spanish)

Review and Information on the Santa Sangre Original Soundtrack composed by Simon Boswell (Very hard to find material)
http://pork-chops.blogspot.com/2007/07/santa-sangre-ost.html (Spanish)

Recordando mi vida

He dedicido hacer una gran lista de todas las películas que he visto, bueno más bien las que he visto y me gustaron, y hacer una reseña de cada una, aunque sea pequeña.

Si ustedes recuerdan haber visto una película conmigo y creen que me gustó díganme por que precisamente estoy haciendo esto, casi no me acuerdo de estas cosas y me va a ser muy útil en un futuro, yo se que si.

De hecho creo que voy a hacer un pequeño sub-blog de películas y reseñas, y cuando tenga oportunidad, por su puesto, soundtracks y las películas en torrentes o algo.

Sé que he visto muchas más que estas.... espero.

Aquí va la lista tan lejos:

Pulp Fiction
Tesis
Naranja MEcanica
Lock stock,
Snatch
Boondock Saints
Viaje acido
Fight Club
Back to the future 1,2,3
The killer clowns from outer space
El Topo
Montaña Sagrada
Santa Sangre
Night of the living dead
Dawn of the dead
Shawn of the dead
Carnival of Souls
Bucket of Blood
Cannibal Holocaust
a History of violence
De nadie
who killed the electric car
garden state
Pendejo: JAckass leve
La ultima tentación de cristo
unknown white male
Pinky violence collection: Criminal Woman: Killing melody
hard candy
Chopper
man on fire
historias del desencanto
Emanuelle in America
Six String Samurai
Reservoir dogs
Big fish
Gummo
Freaks
Tombstone
A very long engagement
Team America
Masters of Horror: Cigarette Burns
Masters of Horror: Deer woman
Bloody Olive (corto)
Catársis (corto)
Mike Babazza (corto) ¡Dato curioso!: Hay tres referencias reales a este corto en internet, y provienen de tres perfiles. El de Cristina Bates, Poncho Lamadrid y el de un servidor.


*Las imágenes son stills de Catársis, un corto donde ayudé con la fotografía.

gotta have jodorowsky

i'm most certainly buying this.

superstar

Voice of Judas
Every time I look at you
I don't understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You'd have managed better
If you'd had it planned
Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?

If you'd come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now
Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know, now
Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know, now
Only want to know

Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tell me what you think
About your friends at the top
Now who d'you think besides yourself
Was the pick of the crop?
Buddah was he where it's at?
Is he where you are?
Could Muhammmed move a mountain
Or was that just PR?
Did you mean to die like that?
Was that a mistake or
Did you know your messy death
Would be a record breaker?

Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know Only want to know
Only want to know, now Only want to know
Only want to know Only want to know
Only want to know, now I only want to know

Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?