Ok, where to begin with this one??
This was my first real taste of Jodorowsky. Years ago as part of a film course I saw The Color of Pomegranates, and somehow I got the impression this would be in a similar kind of vein to that. For the first third or so I wasn't actually that far off the mark - no clear narrative, lots of surrealist touches, cool precise shot framing, general avant-garde tone etc.
What I wasn't expecting was the way, once Jodorowsky himself turns up and things start to get going, it suddenly twists itself into an almost 'zany' and sometimes even laugh out loud funny pisstake on a bunch of cultural subjects. Would it be fair to say the whole movie is a satire on culture and religion? To be honest there's a limit to how much I can talk about what it all means without sounding like the clueless dolt I am.
The final stretch with the actual journey to the mountain kind of lost me occasionally, but the final reveal was a nice touch, even if it's hard not to think of the Holy Grail. As a fan of surrealist freakout imagary I had plenty to enjoy in this, the standout being a charming sequence with a half-bearded old man and his errrr, 'interesting' breasts. Some of this kind of reminds me of a visual equivilent of one of those avant-garde noise records where shocking freakish sounds unexpectedly leap out at you. I bet Mike Patton loves it. I think I'll keep myself in the dark about how some of the stuff involving animals was achieved though.
This was my first real taste of Jodorowsky. Years ago as part of a film course I saw The Color of Pomegranates, and somehow I got the impression this would be in a similar kind of vein to that. For the first third or so I wasn't actually that far off the mark - no clear narrative, lots of surrealist touches, cool precise shot framing, general avant-garde tone etc.
What I wasn't expecting was the way, once Jodorowsky himself turns up and things start to get going, it suddenly twists itself into an almost 'zany' and sometimes even laugh out loud funny pisstake on a bunch of cultural subjects. Would it be fair to say the whole movie is a satire on culture and religion? To be honest there's a limit to how much I can talk about what it all means without sounding like the clueless dolt I am.
The final stretch with the actual journey to the mountain kind of lost me occasionally, but the final reveal was a nice touch, even if it's hard not to think of the Holy Grail. As a fan of surrealist freakout imagary I had plenty to enjoy in this, the standout being a charming sequence with a half-bearded old man and his errrr, 'interesting' breasts. Some of this kind of reminds me of a visual equivilent of one of those avant-garde noise records where shocking freakish sounds unexpectedly leap out at you. I bet Mike Patton loves it. I think I'll keep myself in the dark about how some of the stuff involving animals was achieved though.
