To me, this movie is perfection.

Fantastic!

Brilliant and touching

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

All I'll say is that most everything written by "reviewers" of this movie is wrong. completely.Fenix does NOT rejoin his mother. She was murdered by his father when he was a boy. Fenix -- and we -- saw it with his own eyes, just as he saw his father slice his own throat and commit suicide. Trapped in a trailer, looking out at the horror, he lost his mind.When the movie begins, Fenix is in a sanitarium, NOT a mental hospital. There are other residents there, mainly young men and women with Down's Syndrome or mental retardation. They are not crazy people. The sanitarium is just that.When Fenix is taken on a field trip to the city's red-light district, his trauma is revisited and his horrible childhood memory invoked when he spots the tattooed woman; the linchpin of his and his family's terror.After returning to the sanitarium, Fenix looks out his cell to the street below and HALLUCINATES his mother. She is not really there. She is a VISION, a dream remnant, a wish fulfillment. As was shown early in the movie, he was deeply attached to his mother. Recall the scene when the church of Santa Sangre was being bulldozed and Fenix "rescued" his mother as she stood defiantly in front of the demolition crew. He was a mama's boy through and through. That's why his dad carved the phoenix tattoo on his chest. It was symbolic of a passage from mama's boy to young manhood.All the scenes that follow with his "mother" are him using a wooden dummy of her body, as revealed at the end. Also at the end, with the help of the girl from his childhood, is his realization of his own identity apart from his mother attachment."My hands!" "My hands," he rejoices, even as he's standing in the crosshairs of a swat team. The hold his mother had on him, even years after her death, is finally broken.So, discount every review that contends his armless mother "reappears." She was killed years before. Her death was also a form of wish fulfillment, since she had worshipped the saintly girl who had been killed by her father after he learned she was raped. Her father severed her arms as well.

Alejandro Jodorosky is one of my favorite movie directors, his films are the kind you don't see every day and still don't. He really breaks conventions and pushes the boundaries all to give us not just great visual but substance backed by great intelligence to make it more of an experience; this either makes him a genius or half insane, or probably a combo of both due to what I see.Believe it or not out of his films this one is my favorite one from him and it's one of my favorite films in general. Because this film has the most emotion and a character to feel pathos for.It's hard to really talk about this film because it's one of those one's you have to see to believe and would take more than one watch to uncover more, plus I don't want to give too much away. The production value is great, this was done on a low or modest budget but it was used well and right, the effort really shows. From the use of the location but mainly of all of the set pieces. The music is also really great, some of it is fun mainly that music from the beginning but others express a degree of emotion.But most importantly I really love the visuals and the story that accompanies it. The film in a very weird sense is sort of a story about rising to freedom, I really like how the Greek myth of the Phenix is incorporated into the film. From the fact the main character Fenix has a tattoo of the Phoenix on his chest and his name ironically.This is a character you can't help but feel constant pathos for as he has been tormented by both the past, but his fanatical mom whom somehow psychically controls him. It sort of reflects our subconscious fear of either growing up to be just like our parents, or their ideals and desires interfering with our own. Indeed we see that, from scenes whenever she talks Fenix acts as her hands which I'll admit is impressive the way he moves them to act in sync with her feelings, which isn't an easy feat. This makes it all the more tragic because it shows he has no will of her own, even when she gives an order we know he shouldn't obey but he has no choice.Fenix's mom Bianca is no doubt a monster whom I feel is a villain you just plain hate. She has heavy believe in purity but she is the ultimate hypocrite as she is not pure herself. She is no doubt sexist as she doesn't have a high opinion of men but nor of women as most or all in her mind are impure which is why she believes her son should have no one in his life. Which is why you can say she is unable to fly again, without love you can never really soar to heights.Just like in the myth the Phenix doesn't rise until it is destroyed first and Fenix's life sadly is no bed of roses, as he is tormented internally and externally from the forces from the past and the forces in the present.The world in this film as usual with most of Jodorosky's films is truly a live surreal world where it's dark, strange, dreamlike but all the same fascinating, just about anything can happen here and does. There is always so much going on in the background almost as much as in a "Where's Waldo" art illustration it might take more than one watch to see it all. Let alone there are some constant symbols and overtones, some on sexuality and innocence.One of the best scenes that stick out no doubt are the elepahant funeral scene which is probably the daftest thing I've ever seen in my life, the only other big funeral for an animal is Lil Sepashian in the TV show "Parks and Rec." But the big coffin is dropped down a cliff as food for some white powered villagers storm after it and cut it out and passes parts of the dead elephant. This is obviously metaphor of sexuality and the loss of innocence.Also there is a lot of use with the hands and arms that correlate with the Phenix myth. We see Bianca's religious sect that she possibly created based on a innocent virgin girl that got her arms cut off by some rapists and of course the same fate happens to her. In a way I feel it once again represents the destruction of the Phenix, in a way both women's wings get cut off.But also the back and forth between both Fenix and the deaf mute girl Alna which I think is sweet even though she doesn't talk it was thought her words and facial expressions toward him. The chemistry between both is beautiful because she is the one that can truly give him him freedom because she can give him the one thing he sorely lacks, love. And this is reflected from her constantly giving him the sign of the Phoenix flight. Alna is the protagonist that we bet on and throughout the film are constantly hoping that she will find him and save him, because she herself is a true Phoenix and can make him truly fly.After destruction comes the rise.Rating: 4 stars

Not a big fan of horror or El Topo or Holy mountain, to be honest I just found them tedious and pretentious,maybe I should watch them again? but this is just such a fantastic film. Its completely mad,bonkers,crazy,insane. So imaginative,so witty, so clever,so moving, a feast for the eyes and brain. I would have to rate it as one of my all time greats. I have nothing else to say but I have to have at least ten lines of text. Watch and be amazed. Watch and be amazed. Really watch it you will not be disappointed.I have nothing else to say but I have to have at least ten lines of text. Watch and be amazed. Watch and be amazed. Really watch it you will not be disappointed.

"Santa Sangre" is indeed, a film unlike any other you've ever seen, be it horror film or otherwise - thus, it is almost impossible to put it down in words, but I'll try. Director Alejandro Jorodowsky brings back art-house surrealism so predominant in the works of Fellini and Bunuel, to a new generation, combining it with the sleaze and over-the-top brutality of the 80's splatter. On top of it, Jorodowsky also makes plenty of references to silent cinema, so much so that the film has hardly any dialog, relying solely on body language and raw emotions rather than spoken lines, with some truly impressive and jaw-dropping performances by the whole cast. The final result is a truly unforgettable and visceral experience, filled with some of the most beautifully disturbing imagery and haunting poetry ever caught on celluloid. Granted, it's not a film for everyone, as some might be repelled by it's demented visual style, but those who will let themselves to get into the bizarre, disturbing and captivating world of "Santa Sangre", will surely be rewarded. 10/10