I recommend Jodorowski films to most people with the knowledge that they will be disturbed and possibly hate me forever for the recommendation. He is a Polish Mexican filmmaker who cannot be easily described and must be experienced. I first discovered Jodowroski through Holy Mountain, a conceptual kaleidoscope that symbolgasmically inseminated my dreams with more wonder and confusion than a thousand bastard brain babies. El Topo, the second Jodowroski film I watched, is a bit harder to describe. I watched Santa Sangre while writing up a plot synopsis and would like to share it with the internet. Whereas, with most films, a plot synopsis would be a severe spoiler and discourage later viewings, I posit that any person should be able to read this plot synopsis, immediately watch Santa Sangre, and be constantly surprised.
Santa Sangre
A man is insane and thinks he is an eagle.
Enter Circo Del Gringo. A boy magician, whose best friend is a midget touted as the worlds smallest elephant trainer, falls in love with the mute girl who walks a flaiming tight rope. His father (the ringleader who looks like a wicked overweight Brett Micheals) is a drunk who killed a woman in America and cannot return, but falls in love with the tattooed lady.
Some nuns are rioting because their church (Santa Sangre) is going to get bulldozed. Just when it looks like they will defeat the bulldozers through the power of music the Monseignor arives to hear the history of the church: Their patron saint and martyr, Lidio, was a little girl who was attacked by some street thugs who cut off her arms then raped her and left her to die in a pool of blood which miraculously still exists in the foyer of the church. The Monseignor says she is no saint and that the pool of blood is actually a pool of paint. He rejects the head nun as a heretic and encourages the bulldozers to tear it down. The head nun is the magician boy's mother, but luckily, some clowns are there to chear him up.
The tatooed lady is very flexible. Head nun does not approve. But she is powerless when confronted with the Ringleader's spandexed body. Scary sex scene culminates with an elephant spewing blood from his trunk. Clown band plays it out. Huge coffin goes over the cliff while the mudmen pay tribute. . . and then eat it. Everyone dances.
Ringleader gives (forces upon) Magician boy his first tattoo, and passes him his mantel. Mute girl doesn't know the sign for eagle so does the sign for dove instead.
Clown show. Magic show.
Ex-head nun burns off Ringleader's genitals with acid so he cuts her arms off then slits his own throat. Mute girl watches in horror then gets kidnapped by the tattooed lady while the boy magician watches impotently from his trailer.
Hey, guess what? The crazy guy from the beginning is the boy magician all grown up. His doctors try a revolutionary new therapy that consists of hugging kids with down syndrome while circus music plays and then eating a lot of fruit.
Crazy eagle guy and the downies are sent to the movies while doctor and nurse make out in the car, but instead of seeing a movie, some guy gives them cocaine, takes them out dancing with transvestite hookers, then gets them all a deal on cheap blowies. Crazy eagle guy wanders off and finds the Tatooed lady. . . flash forward to the next morning and mommy-no-arms gets magician manboy to jailbreak himself by utilizing her crazy crazy eyes. . . Tatooed lady is hooking the mute girl to a mute, giant, Mexican Lenny but she escapes via Transvestite-hooker-conga line, though she narowly escapes a creepy dude who tries to feed her his ear.
Tattooed lady gets hacked to bits by a mysterious stranger with a dagger.
Crazy man/magician boy reunites with his midget friend and then acts as his Mother's hands while she gives a creation and fall sermon with mariachi accompaniment followed by cancan girls and striptease.
Magician Manboy in ringleader costume meets with stripper but his mom takes control of his arms and throws a knife into her and she dies. They hide her in a donkey costume and bury her in their backyard after painting her white. She turns into a goose and flies away.
(At this time I wandered outside and discovered a phospho-luminescent worm crawling around my backyard. I watched it for nearly twenty minutes wondering if I was sane or not and then trapped it in a matchbox. The matchbox was empty when I checked it in the morning.)
Magician Manboy is his mom's hands for breakfast and then she uses him to practice the piano. Chickens and Jesus figure.
Magician Manboy fantasizes about being the invisible man and a mad scientist but is disappointed about his obvious lack of invisibility, anyway, his mom needs his hands to finish knitting stockings. He goes to the apothecary and pulls a giant python out of his pants. . . but only in his mind.
Luchador fight with the world's strongest woman, nobody can overcome her. (shower scene with world's strongest woman and magician manboy that I would like to forget forever) Magician manboy seduces world's strongest woman in an attempt to find a woman who can overpower his mom's control over his arms, but mom is far too strong and has a samurai sword at her disposal.
Magician Manboy's victims' become bridal looking zombies and rise from their graves. . . don't worry, I'm sure it's just a metaphor.
Mute girl and Magician are reunited at last! They may or may not have floated when they kissed. But Mom enters and commands her son's hands to cut off mute girl's arms. EPIC STRUGGLE! He defeats his mom and she becomes a ghost of some sort, and the clowns are now back to comfort him.
Pigeons, puppets, more clowns, a musical number, a fire hazard, some mannequin violence, a burning in effigy, a midget kiss, and then everyone goes to jail.
The End.
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