I enjoy transcendental movies. One of my all-times favorite film directors is Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean director that stopped making films for more than 20 years and now lives in Paris. However, he recently wrote and directed a new film (2013) which I still haven't watched.
He is a symbolist and a tarotist, so all his films are full of symbols and mysticism. He pries too much on social and religious taboos, and for most public it's hard to watch. Also because purposely he likes to abuse of the bizarre and grotesque. Thus, in the seventies, when he presented one of his films in Mexico, which is a very religious and conservative society, he barely could escape alive from the country. The people did not forgive him play with so many taboos and he had to run for his life to never again return.
His films written and directed by himself are:
- La Cravate (1957)
- Fando and Lis (1968)
- El Topo (1970)
- The Holy Mountain (1973)
- Tusk (1980)
- Santa Sangre (1989)
- The Rainbow Thief (1990)
- The Dance of Reality (2013)
La Cravate is just a short, his first filming experiment. It's cool and nice, but not as explosively magic as his other longer movies.
Tusk, in words of Jodorowsky, is a film that frustrated him greatly. It was filmed in India, and due to the local taboos, he was forbidden to film the scenes that he was planing for, and eventually the result is not the film he intended to do.
The Rainbow Thief stars Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole. Jodorowsky was greatly limited by the producer to let his imagination free, and also feels frustrated about this film. Still, it's very beautiful and profound.
The Dance of Reality is very new and I still didn't watch.
His other films are true masterpieces of spiritual quests, psycho-magic and symbolism. Probably, Jodorowsky may be the most successful spiritual oriented film maker.
Hi Rodrigo! My name is Francisca from Chile and i recently saw "La danza de la realidad". It's a great movie, full of poetry and symbolisms. He talk about social and political issues with his characteristics spiritual messages. I recommend it!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have tried to find the film, but with not much luck. I'll give it another try now. Perhaps I am luckier.
ReplyDeleteI recently watched Jodorovsky's Dune. It is a documentary film about how Jodorovsky was engaged in creating probably the most amazing and difficult fantasy-sci-fi movie in History: "Dune". Dune is an icon of the genre, and he had nearly "unlimited" powers to hire whomever he wanted for this film. He hired Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, and several other icons... prepared the whole script after years of work, and finally he was refused by all the big film-studios because his extravagant style was not trusted as commercial, though appreciated as a genius, and his project was considered a master-piece, but too pretentious.