Santa Sangre
| Santa Sangre | |
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Original US theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Produced by | Claudio Argento |
| Written by | Alejandro Jodorowsky Roberto Leoni Claudio Argento |
| Starring |
Axel Jodorowsky Blanca Guerra Adan Jodorowsky Thelma Tixou |
| Music by | Simon Boswell |
| Cinematography | Daniele Nannuzzi |
| Edited by | Mauro Bonanni |
| Distributed by | Mainline Pictures Expanded Entertainment |
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Release date
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Running time
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123 minutes |
| Country | Italy Mexico |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $787,000 |
Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) is a 1989 Mexican-Italian avant-garde horror film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and written by Jodorowsky along with Claudio Argento and Roberto Leoni. It stars Axel Jodorowsky, Adan Jodorowsky, Teo Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Thelma Tixou and . Divided into both a flashback and a flash-forward, the film, which is set in Mexico, tells the story of Fenix, a boy who grew up in a circus, and his life through both adolescence and early adulthood.
The film starts with a naked figure sitting in a tree in what looks like a mental asylum. Nurses come out to him, bringing a plate of conventional food and also one of a raw fish. As they try to coax him off of his perch, it is the fish that persuades him to come down. As the nurses get him to put on some overalls, the viewer sees that he has a tattoo of phoenix on his chest.
The film flashes back into Fenix's childhood, which he spent performing as a "child magician" in a circus run by his father Orgo, the knife-thrower, and his mother Concha, a trapeze artist and aerialist. The circus crew also includes, among others, a tattooed woman, who acts as the object of Orgo's knife-throwing feats, her adopted daughter Alma (a hearing-impaired, voiceless mime and tightrope walker whom Fenix fancies, with the feeling mutual), Fenix's midget friend Aladin, a pack of clowns and a small elephant. Orgo carries on a very public flirtation with the tattooed woman, and their knife-throwing act is heavily sexualized.
Concha is also the leader of a religious cult that considers, as its patron saint, a little girl who was raped and had her arms cut off by two brothers. Their church is about to be bulldozed at the behest of the owner of the land, and the followers make one last stand against the police and the bulldozers. A Roman Catholic Monsignor drives into the conflict, saying that he will prevent its demolition, but after he enters the temple to inspect it he deems it blasphemous and unworthy (the girl worshipped is no saint, he says, and the supposed pool of "holy blood" at the center of the edifice contains just red paint), so the demolition is carried out. Fenix leads Concha back to the circus, where she finds out about Orgo's affair, but Orgo, being also a hypnotist, puts Concha in a trance and rapes her.
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Wikipedia