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Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Friday, December 12, 2014 - 20:30
Written by:
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Cast:
Brontis Jodorowsky, Pamela Flores, Jeremias Herskovtis, Cristobal Jodorowsky, Adan Jodorowsky
Cinematography:
Jean-Marie Dreujou
Editing:
Maryline Monthieux
Music:
Adan Jodorowsky
Producer:
Moisés Cosío, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux
Production:
Caméra One, Le Soleil Films
“Mr. Jodorowsky’s reputation for extremity and surrealist inventiveness is upheld by grotesque, horrifying and comical images that seek out zones of maximum sexual, social and political sensitivity. (…) Its blend of visual elegance and perversity recalls the work of Luis Buñuel, and also of Mr. Jodorowsky’s countryman Raúl Ruiz. The streets of Tocopilla are touched with some of the magic realism that animated Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo on the other side of the continent, and also with a tragic sense of history.” (A. O. Scott, The New York Times)
With a fierce cult following, best known for his outrageously surreal films from the 60s and 70s (EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN), blending mysticism, sexualized violence and religious provocation, the "Grand Wizard of midnight movies" (as The Hollywood Reporter calls him) returned to the big screen after a hiatus of nearly 25 years, with his 2013 feature THE DANCE OF REALITY, a semi-autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in the remote Chilean town of Tocopilla in the early 1930s. Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology, and poetry, the film reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective, but rather a dance created by our own imagination.
With the filmmaker himself serving as both the narrator and as an on-screen guide, "the first half of the film focuses on young Alejandro and his complicated relationship with his parents - father Jaime (played by the filmmaker's son, Brontis Jodorowsky) is a Stalin-obsessed brute consumed with making a man out of his seemingly effeminate son by any means necessary; mother Sara is an overly doting type whose every word is literally delivered as an operatic aria. In the second half, the focus shifts to Jaime and his dramatic conversion from communism to radicalism that leads him to abandon his family to set off on a quest to assassinate the hateful military leader, Carlos Ibanez, a mission that threatens to leave him both physically and spiritually crippled as a result..” (Peter Sobczynski, rogerebert.com)
With a fierce cult following, best known for his outrageously surreal films from the 60s and 70s (EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN), blending mysticism, sexualized violence and religious provocation, the "Grand Wizard of midnight movies" (as The Hollywood Reporter calls him) returned to the big screen after a hiatus of nearly 25 years, with his 2013 feature THE DANCE OF REALITY, a semi-autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in the remote Chilean town of Tocopilla in the early 1930s. Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology, and poetry, the film reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective, but rather a dance created by our own imagination.
With the filmmaker himself serving as both the narrator and as an on-screen guide, "the first half of the film focuses on young Alejandro and his complicated relationship with his parents - father Jaime (played by the filmmaker's son, Brontis Jodorowsky) is a Stalin-obsessed brute consumed with making a man out of his seemingly effeminate son by any means necessary; mother Sara is an overly doting type whose every word is literally delivered as an operatic aria. In the second half, the focus shifts to Jaime and his dramatic conversion from communism to radicalism that leads him to abandon his family to set off on a quest to assassinate the hateful military leader, Carlos Ibanez, a mission that threatens to leave him both physically and spiritually crippled as a result..” (Peter Sobczynski, rogerebert.com)
Director:
ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY is a Chilean scholar in comparative religion, playwright, director, producer, composer, actor, mime, comic book writer, tarot reader, historian and psychotherapist. His filmography includes revered movies such as El Topo (1970), SANTA SANGRE (1989), and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973). In the age of psychedelia, with its new permissiveness in terms of sex and violence, Jodorowsky was a visionary favorably compared to Fellini or Kubrick. He has always found himself in between the two, worshipped by fans of rock music and science fiction for the power of his imagery. Jodorowsky is an incredible cineaste, with each of his films tracing the path of an adventure, vision or experience ever crazier, terrifying or dangerous, comparable to the work of Dario Argento or Werner Herzog.
Selective awards and recognition:
2006: Time-Machine Honorary Award, Sitges, Catalonian International Film Festival
2000: Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award, Chicago Underground Film Festival
1991: Nominated for the Best Director Saturn Award, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA for the feature SANTA SANGRE
1989: Nominated for the Gold Hugo Award, Chicago International Film Festival for the feature SANTA SANGRE
1989: Career Award, Fantafestival
1974: Special Jury Award, Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival for the feature EL TOPO
1973, Special Mention, Taormina International Film Festival, for the feature THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
Festivals, awards:
- Quinzaine des Réalisateurs - Cannes Film Festival 2013
- Morelia International Film Festival 2013
- South by South-West International Film Festival 2014
Director's statement:
Everything changes. Gabriel Garcia Márquez, in A Hundred Years of Solitude, describes a town, Macondo, that never changes. But that is a novel. My town was still there. I was astonished. The square, the street, had been a universe for me. Seeing it now, it was so small. Then I understood: you see your memories, they have an age. As you revisit your memory as an older person, you change them. This is what I did with the film: I changed myself, I changed the reality. Now, my memory is different. (…) I changed my reality, and that is not only for movies. It is an act of psychological healing. The world is so ill and we need to make art that can heal. We need to try to heal something, not go to movies to forget. You need to go to movies to find yourself. It’s different. That is what I do or what I try to do. (Alex Zafiris interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Everything changes. Gabriel Garcia Márquez, in A Hundred Years of Solitude, describes a town, Macondo, that never changes. But that is a novel. My town was still there. I was astonished. The square, the street, had been a universe for me. Seeing it now, it was so small. Then I understood: you see your memories, they have an age. As you revisit your memory as an older person, you change them. This is what I did with the film: I changed myself, I changed the reality. Now, my memory is different. (…) I changed my reality, and that is not only for movies. It is an act of psychological healing. The world is so ill and we need to make art that can heal. We need to try to heal something, not go to movies to forget. You need to go to movies to find yourself. It’s different. That is what I do or what I try to do. (Alex Zafiris interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky)