I am still blown away 20 hours after experiencing The Dance of Reality, the legendary Alejandro Jodorowskys first film in over 23 years. A unique creative genius whose filmography combines magic realism with surrealism infused with intense religious symbolism, this latest work is the Maestros most personal, a Jungian reliving of his own nightmarish childhood as a persecuted Ukrainian Jewish child in pre WW II small town coastal Chile saddled with an overbearingly hypermacho Stalinist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, so memorable decades ago as the adorable child in El Topo) and an operatically smothering drama queen mother. At one key point the films focus shifts from the sons dreamlike journey to the fathers political transformation, an awkward device that could have been totally disastrous and unsettlingly confusing in the hands of a lesser auteur. The extraordinarily charismatic director, who I was fortunate enough to hang out with during his extended stay in New York during the initial run of El Topo at the Elgin, also intermittently appears onscreen, still impossibly youthful and strikingly handsome at age 85! On more than a few occasions it is evident how Jodorowsky was extremely inspired by his interaction with San Franciscos legendary Cockettes, who were also participating in the vibrant downtown Big Apple cultural scene during the wizards stay there. I find it woefully unfair that this latest film from one of world cinemas greatest masters, like Polanskis latest masterpiece Venus in Fur, are relegated to woefully limited art house release, while hokum by the numbers from Tom Cruise, Jonah Hill, Melissa McCarthy, Cameron Diaz ad nauseum hog and clog the metaplex pipeline. Audiences lamentably must still only be comfortable with the same old tired wham bam wink wink bullsh*t both from the studios and, even more sadly, from their politicians.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 00:31:41 +0000
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