alejandro jodorowsky is bitchin'.

I generally count Santa Sangre as one of my favorite horror flicks, despite the fact that it transcends a myriad of genres, and attempt to view it at least once a year. Visually, it's a marvel; many scenes, regardless of their dark nature, astound me to this day. The baptismal pool found within the Church of Santa Sangre is especially striking.

Many critics fault it for being highbrow nonsense, but they fail to realize that beautiful, overwrought nonsense is the point. The use of deep reds has always struck me as being indicative of extravagance, the surrealism indicative of the disregard Alejandro Jodorowsky has for making complete sense of the story being unspooled. Surrealism is nonsense.

I recently came across a rather interesting documentary from the BBC about Jodorowsky, "For One Night Only," produced around the time Santa Sangre was released. It's a rather obscure, moderately fascinating look at a director whose work I find startlingly beautiful (and alternately grotesque), one who has managed to stay under the radar enough where I know next to nothing about the actual man.

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