jdelamater-01684 Santa Sangre is a 1989 Mexican surrealist psychological horror film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The film stars Jodorowsky's sons Aden and Axel Jodorowsky who play young Fenix and adult Fenix. Young Fenix is a boy with aspirations of becoming a magician living in a Circus with his Circus performer parents. Adult Fenix is a magician living in a psychiatric ward in Mexico City. Fenix and his mother Concha are very close. When Fenix's mother's arms are chopped off early in his life, he breaks down mentally and is sent to a psychiatric ward. Until one day he escapes and is reunited with his dead mother. He then helps her live out her life with the help of his arms. This leads the two to become dangerously codependent on each other. In this film analysis, I will explain how sex, violence, and the fear of growing up is shown symbolically as well as literally throughout the film.When we are children, we think about the freedoms of adulthood. But what we fail to realize is what those freedoms bring. Adulthood remains an even harder task when not properly transitioned. With Fenix's role as a magician, he plays out the ultimate transformation of death into life. He acts this out because he is constantly being haunted by the past. What was dead before, comes to life before his eyes. We see this through his mother as well as the many scenes in the graveyard. Fenix's tragic life begins when he catches his mother and father having sex. His mother's pleasure contrasts with the elephant's pain. The elephant symbolizes Fenix's innocence and childhood, which dies when he learns of his father's affair with the tattooed woman. This is shown later in the film when we see a naked and older Fenix hunkered down spewing blood out of his nose. The tattooed woman is the ultimate representation of sex and desires that Fenix's young mind is scarred by. The hesitance to grow up is first shown when we see young Fenix crying and holding his mother's waist as her building is about to be destroyed on top of her. Concha nurtures him when he needs her because she is the maternal figure. But his father takes a more masculine approach to his son's behavior. He wants his son to be more like him so he tattoos an eagle onto his chest. This can be seen as a sort of forced acceptance from his father as well as what his father believes to be the right of manhood. His father leaves more than just a literal mark on Fenix. When Fenix is met with a woman he desires later in life, he dresses up like his father and throws knives at the woman. He does this not only because this is what he knows to be a sign of affection towards someone desirable. But also because sex and violence have become connected through his traumatizing childhood. Fenix's fear of sex is learned very early. Not only through the elephant. But through his mother's reaction to sexual acts. When Fenix is young, he may not be mature enough to realize his father is having an affair. But what he does understand is that his mother's reactions to the tattooed woman's and his father's sexual interactions is wrong. This leads him to believe that all sexual acts can be seen as wrong. We see this when a snake is coming out of his pants uncontrollably when he invites a harmless woman to his home. When Fenix sees the tattooed woman when he is an adult, his repressed childhood comes rushing back into the foreground of his mind. This leads him to escape the mental health facility and regress back to his childhood. This regression to childhood brings his mother back. This leads Fenix to living out his mother's desires so that he doesn't have to take responsibility for his own life. What his mother represents at this point is his guilty conscience. She punishes him for his mistakes and shames him for his inabilities. This leads to Fenix's desire to become The Invisible Man. The Invisible Man represents Fenix's desire to disappear or not exist. After Fenix lets his mother go, he is then forced to take responsibility for his own actions as an adult in a dangerous world.Santa Sangre is indeed a surrealistic horror film and it certainly succeeds at that. But at it's heart, it is a story about growing up and the fears that can bring. I think that's why Jodorowsky chose his sons to play the role of Fenix. A lot of the success of the film depended on how far they were willing to go with the characters and I think he felt he could get that across to them more than a normal actor. With this film, Jodorowsky creates a coming of age film like no one has ever seen on film. A truly miraculous feat in many regards.

paul-vanemmerik I thrive on unconventional, personal cinema. I adore Bunuel, Lynch, Greenaway, E. Elias Merhiges' "Begotten" and almost anything that steers away from the cookie-cutter variety of film-making. This film however, and Jodorowsky's work in general, is difficult for me to sit through and find enjoyment. Perhaps I would have appreciated it more if the overall quality and acting had been better. The ideas and situations are outrageous, crazy and certainly more original than anything I can think of but the audio/visual quality, horrible acting and extremely low budget look of this film prevented me from appreciating it in any way. I'm much more impressed with the low budget film "Begotten" where the low quality is one of the main attributes of this films power. I feel that this is where Jodorowski fails. He has not been able to use his limited budget to greatest effect.

J. Craig Anderson I love Alejandro Jodorowsky, the person, who is charismatic and funny and interesting. But, man, he must have been smoking some righteous substances when he made this amateurish and borderline incoherent mess. After looking at the glowing reviews, I feel compelled to exclaim that the emperor has no clothes here. In a way, I get why the adulation. Jodorowsky is a seriously cool guy, and it is commendable whenever a filmmaker goes out on a limb to make something with zero mainstream appeal. He is probably a genius, based on the quality of his comics more so than his movies. But come on. Bad is bad. I never for a single moment forgot that I was watching a movie during this. The histrionic acting was laughable. I did not care about a single character. The symbolism was obvious and clunky. The special effects were cartoonish. I became increasingly bored and had to pause the film twice just to get up the energy to finish it. I did like one scene - the piano scene - which was genuinely impressive. His son apparently can act when given the right material. But the rest of it was insufferably dumb.

porkwellington If you like obscure films with lingering images of so called social commentary which add nothing but then if you took them away then there wouldn't be much to see then this is for you....Its a real throwback - there are better ways of expressing an opinion and probably more importantly - there are more deserving causes to have an opinion on in the first place....This is just a hackneyed piece which explains away an unhappy ending - with an unhappy beginning...This is the first review that I've done which is unfortunate as...I don't think I can really pad out 10 lines trying to describe anything much about it....If you are at all tempted then try and find an excerpt on youtube or similar - what you see is what you will get - all the way through!