Digi-Schlock: SANTA SANGRE (Severin Blu-Ray)

For the longest time, Alejandro Jodorowsky belonged to that unfor­tu­nate cat­e­gory of cult film­mak­ers whose work was eas­ier to read about than to actu­ally see.  His most famous films, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, were tied up due to legal wran­glings with financier/infamous music biz crook Allen Klein and his debut Fando Y Lis was con­sid­ered a lost film.  Thankfully, Anchor Bay did a lot to cor­rect that sit­u­a­tion with a box set of his films that included hand­somely mas­tered ver­sions of those three titles.  All that was left was of his major work was Santa Sangre, which was only avail­able in the U.S. via OOP, edited tape and laserdisc versions.

Luckily for Jodorowsky fans, Severin Films has stepped up to the plate with a fresh edi­tion of Santa Sangre that does well by this odd but unfor­get­table cult film.  This blu-ray disc offers a pris­tine trans­fer of the film with rich col­ors — par­tic­u­larly in a few scenes that use primary-colored light­ing — and a fine sense of detail.  In terms of sound­track, there is a loss­less stereo 2.0 English mix as well as Italian stereo and Spanish mono mixes.  Since the film was pri­mar­ily shot in English, that track is an ideal option — and it deliv­ers a nice sound­scape that presents the film’s blend of musi­cal styles with appro­pri­ate heft.

Even bet­ter, there are hours of spe­cial fea­tures on this disc that mix items from a pre­vi­ous UK spe­cial edi­tion with new mate­r­ial pro­duced espe­cially for this set.  The bar­rage of bonuses begins with a fun com­men­tary track that pairs Jodorowsky with critic Alan Jones.  Jones does a good job of keep­ing the irrev­er­ent direc­tor on track and their dif­fer­ing approaches to read­ing a film (Jones is schol­arly, Jodorowsky is instinc­tive) make this track an enter­tain­ing lis­ten.  The most enter­tain­ing bit might come when Jodorowsky becomes humor­ously exas­per­ated when asked what inspired him to make a par­tic­u­lar choice and blurts out “An apple tree make apples!”

There is also a lav­ish doc­u­men­tary that was pre­pared espe­cially for this set.  It is enti­tled Forget Everything You Have Ever Known (the tagline from Santa Sangre) and runs about 96 min­utes as it cov­ers how the film came to be, how the script was reg­u­larly expanded and changed on set by the direc­tor and the reac­tions of sev­eral of its actors — includ­ing the two Jodorowsky sons who played the main char­ac­ter.  Jodorowsky holds court through­out and is daz­zling, oft hilar­i­ous racon­teur but his mem­o­ries are nicely fleshed out by the other par­tic­i­pants.  The soft-spoken Adan Jodorowsky is par­tic­u­larly com­pelling, relat­ing the often-scary tales of how his father used tough meth­ods to get the right emo­tions out him.  Fans will also be pleased by the inclu­sion of Thelma Tixou, the actress who essayed the film’s Tattooed Lady char­ac­ter: she tells fun sto­ries about the chal­lenges of play­ing a fully-tattooed char­ac­ter and per­form­ing in the knife-throwing scene.  She even shows some of her dance moves!

Those two sup­ple­ments are just the tip of the ice­berg.  Also included is a seg­ment of the BBC show For One Week Only that focuses on Jodorowsky.  Host Jonathan Ross exten­sively inter­views the always-entertaining direc­tor (look for his response to a cri­tique of the female char­ac­ters in his films) and also fea­tures quips from the likes of Dennis Hopper and critic J. Hoberman.  A pro­file of Goyo Cardenas, the real-life ser­ial killer whose case inspired Santa Sangre, is also fas­ci­nat­ing in a rather grisly way.  Composer Simon Boswell inter­views Jodorowsky for a brief but fun segment

Boswell also con­tributes two short films built around music from the film: “Blink Jodorowsky” is kind of a like a Warhol short — it just shows the direc­tor open­ing and clos­ing his eyes in time to music — but “Close Your Eyes” is a full-on music video that uses Santa Sangre footage and a sam­ple of Jodorowsky’s voice to daz­zling effect.  There’s also a brief silent short by Adan Jodorowsky that includes optional com­men­tary: it’s light but charm­ing stuff with a con­vinc­ing mock-silent film vibe.  The shorter side of things is rounded out by trail­ers for Santa Sangre (English and Japanese) plus some bonus trail­ers for other Severin fare and a stills gallery.

Your Humble Reviewer has saved two of his favorite extras for last: Jodorowsky On Stage is a relaxed Q&A ses­sion filmed in front of an English audi­ence after a Santa Sangre screen­ing in 2002 while another inter­view from 2003 is a straight­for­ward talking-head piece with the direc­tor hold­ing forth on a vari­ety of top­ics.  The first of these seg­ments shows how enter­tain­ing Jodorowsky can be a live sit­u­a­tion, play­ing off the audi­ence with the skill of a vet­eran stand-up come­dian.  His phys­i­cal demon­stra­tion of his opin­ions on Tarantino and Rodriguez films is par­tic­u­larly funny.  The sec­ond piece offers a lot of fas­ci­nat­ing shoot-from-the-hip anec­dotes and opin­ions on a vari­ety of top­ics, includ­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing rev­e­la­tion that this trip­pi­est of direc­tors has lit­tle use for drugs.

In short, Severin’s blu-ray edi­tion of Santa Sangre works both as a defin­i­tive edi­tion of this film and as an in-depth explo­ration of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the artist.  Even the over­lap in anec­dotes and opin­ions between the fea­tures is inter­est­ing because Jodorowsky often brings out dif­fer­ent shad­ings to his thoughts in a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion.  Though it is early in the year, Your Humble Reviewer is con­fi­dent that this disc will be tough to beat as a con­tender in the “Best Discs of 2011″ roundups at year’s end.