You might not recognize the name Luis Barragán, but any student of counterculture and edgy film will recognize the great master’s work. The architect’s monumental sculptures play a key role in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s epic The Holy Mountain though most viewers might assume they are looking at stage sets. Here’s some Wiki…

The Torres de Satélite (“Satélite Towers”) are located in Ciudad Satélite, in the northern part of Naucalpan, Mexico. One of the country’s first urban sculptures of great dimensions, had its planning started in 1957 with the ideas of renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán, painter Jesús Reyes Ferreira and sculptor Mathias Goeritz. The project was originally planned to be composed of seven towers, with the tallest one reaching a height of 200 meters (about 650 feet),[citation needed] but a budget reduction forced the design to be composed of only five towers, with the tallest measuring 52 meters (170 feet) and the shortest 30 meters (98 feet).

Goeritz originally wanted the towers to be painted in different shades of orange, but changed his mind later due to some pressure from constructors and investors. It was finally decided the towers would be painted in red, blue and yellow, the so-called primary subtractive colors, with the addition of white.

The Satellite Towers play a pivotal role at the beginning of the film’s mind-blowing second act, and it’s important to recognize not only Jodorowsky’s use of existing structures, but also Barragán’s gorgeous, massive work. Here’s a cool drive-by video of the actual towers that demonstrates their perspective-warping designs…

The Ever-changing perspective view of Torres de Satélite – Luis Barragan from Jinglu on Vimeo.

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Nashville, TN is experiencing a Alejandro Jodorowsky renaissance this month with the Belcourt Theatre’s screenings of some of the auteur’s most important works, leading up to the local premiere of his new film, Dance of Reality.

My fellow local film writers and I all respect the master’s outlandish visuals, his passion for the surreal and his esoteric spiritual explorations, but, of course, his movies aren’t for everyone. After last week’s screening of The Holy Mountain I kept thinking about the film — I’ve watched it many times and this most recent viewing was the second time I’d seen it on the big screen. I came away wondering if I’d seen any other films that paved the way for Jodorowsky, and while early surrealist cinema certainly deserves a nod, if you want to know where Jodo’s roots really dig in, you have to look to the stage, not the screen.

Here’s what the Mutantspace site has to say about Jodorowsky’s “Melodrama Sacramental” performance piece from 1965…

Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s ‘Melodrama Sacramentral’ was a happening presented by his group, The Panic Movement at the Paris Festival of Free Expression in 1965. Inspired and named after the God Pan and influenced by Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, the group concentrated on chaotic and surreal performance art, as a response to surrealism becoming mainstream. And this performance set their stall out.

This film is a 15 minute edit of the four hour absurdist performance that is, quite frankly, impossible to articulate. You just have to watch it. Melodrama Sacramentral combined religious themes and violence and is both funny, disturbing, provocative, ridiculous, a work of it’s time, a surreal mind bender that has everything from naked performers convulsing to free jazz drum solos, a leather clad Jodorowsky slitting the throats of geese, taping two snakes to his chest and having himself stripped and whipped, there are naked women covered in honey, a crucified chicken, the staged murder of a rabbi, a giant vagina as well as the throwing of live turtles into the audience.

The nudity, crucified animals, hair-cutting, cross-carrying and the giant vagina here all make it into The Holy Mountain. If you want to know where Jodo’s visionary costumes, sets and makeup — not too mention his actor’s bizarre performances — come from, you have to dig into his work as a mime, an actor and a director on the stage. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I’ve got your master’s degree in Jodorowsky right here:

This is “Melodrama Sacramental”…

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1980 wasn’t a great year for Alejandro Jodorowsky. Having just barely survived the end of the 1970′s when the film that was to be his magnum opus — an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic Dune — fell apart for the final time, Jodo was anxious to get back to work. He agreed to make a children’s film.

At first, the idea of the anarchist auteur making a movie for kids might sound odd, but Tusk (Poo Lorn L’Elephant) told a tale about the shared fate of an English girl and an Indian elephant. The story had the kind of spiritual overtones that Jodo had marshaled so furiously in The Holy Mountain and the coming of age tale shared some similarities with El Topo — even the Indian locations promised exotic settings that surely inspired the director.

Alas, a classic it was not meant to be. Tusk is roundly criticized by those who’ve been able to see it — the only home release is an un-subtitled French language version on VHS. Even Jodo has disowned the movie.

But is it really that bad? Isn’t the parallel birth scene at the beginning of the film remarkable? Doesn’t the fact that you can follow the film without knowing French say something about the master’s mastery of visual storytelling? Don’t you want to run out and find this prog/raga soundtrack on vinyl?

Here’s what the Cue Dot Confessions blog has to say:

If Jodorowsky’s mark is seen anywhere it is in the strong anti-colonial sentiment that runs through the film and in the scattered inconsistency of the message. Tusk is a film for children and viewed side by side with other slapstick-centric “ethnographic” films of that period (The Gods Must Be Crazy springs to mind), it could possibly be viewed as quite unremarkable, and yet the way that Jodorowsky handles the Indian landscape and its people still seems fresh and surprisingly natural. There are sweeping, long take crane shots that literally drink up all the vibrancy of country. The Indian extras act quite unselfconciously in the face of the stiff “acting” of the English and the bald, over-drawn comedy of the film’s villains.

Jodorowsky has an obvious affinity with India and an affection for the people and the animals. The elephant scenes, and there are many, are impressive in their National Geographic-ness even if they add little to the momentum of the film. These scenes make Tusk’s first half a joy to watch. Unfortunately, all of this freshness is squandered as the on again, off again romance, machinations, and motivations of the cast twist, overlap, lie dormant and then snap to life. By the time everything has fallen into a jumbled heap…

Regardless of its ultimate value in Jodorowsky’s oeuvre, Tusk is required viewing for any completist. Here is the film in its entirety:

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This week: Two lone wanderers return, the Tories hate Kim…a lot, Minority Report is getting closer, Surveillance Free day, Bradley update, Progressives get an open letter, we catch up with our lost heroes. Only God Forgives and The Holy Mountain, and much much more.

Personnel – Joe Nolan, Kim Monaghan, and Ken Eakins + SPECIAL GUESTS!

Linkypoops

David Cameron hates me – Link , Link

Retail Stores have new ways to track you – Link

The Surveillance-Free Day - Link

Bradley Manning verdict – Link

An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives – Link

The Holy Mountain at 40 – Link

Interludes

Chrome Hoof, The Lonely Island, Star Wars, and Arnie

Getting some links together for the latest Coincidence Control Network podcast, I was shocked that we hadn’t talked about the 40th anniversary of my favorite Alejandro Jodorowsky film The Holy Mountain. I’ve mentioned the film in previous posts, but this important birthday is one that must be observed with reverence and open eyes.

Check out this great retrospective which tracks our hero’s work from his earliest art projects through the making of his 1989 “comeback” film Santa Sangre. One Week Only: Alejandro Jodorowsky offers candid interviews with the master as well as lots of footage from El Topo and The Holy Mountain which the documentary describes as “Perhaps the ultimate acid trip on film”

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more cinema posts.

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Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of my favorite artists of all time. One reason why I love this guy’s work so much is that he does it all: writer, director, actor, mime, magician, comic book author, tarot card expert. He’s completely brilliant and hilarious, and both of those traits are present in his films – which I highly recommend despite the fact that Jodo certainly isn’t for everybody.

Readers of this blog are no doubt familiar with Jodorowsky’s Western cum vision quest El Topo, but, for me, the director reaches his cinematic summit – so far – at the top of The Holy Mountain. Without question one of the most bizarre and visually stunning films anyone will ever see, critics who dismiss the plot as a mish-mash of New Age flotsam can be forgiven for not recognizing the gold Jodorowsky hid in the excrement.

Check out one of The Holy Mountain’s most famous scenes (NSFW):

Watch The Jodorowsky Constellation at my YouTube channel and read more about Jodorowsky’s magical philosophy on Joe Nolan’s Insomnia.

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