01
Santa Sangre
Why this pick
Jodorowsky again turns traumatic family memory into flamboyant ritual: theatrical tableaux, sacred-profane imagery, and an emotional logic that moves like a dream rather than realism.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2013 2h 10m CHL
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Dance of Reality
DramaFantasy
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Dance of Reality, try these.
01
02
The Holy Mountain
Why this pick
Its handcrafted, confrontational surrealism and procession of symbolic images share the ecstatic visual imagination and spiritual rebellion of The Dance of Reality.
03
The Fall
Why this pick
A child’s perspective transforms pain and hardship into lavish storybook imagery, matching the earlier film’s tender, artificial-looking magic and fable-like emotional force.
04
The Color of Pomegranates
Why this pick
Parajanov’s biographical poetry unfolds through posed iconographic tableaux rather than conventional plot, a close fit for Jodorowsky’s ritualized memories and saturated visual symbolism.
05
The Spirit of the Beehive
Why this pick
This quiet childhood reverie finds the uncanny inside an authoritarian household, pairing fragile imagination with political and familial shadows in a similarly poetic mode.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Young Alejandro (Jeremías Herskovits) lives with his Jewish-Ukrainian parents Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky) and Sara (Pamela Flores) in Tocopilla, Chile. Jaime is a communist who worships Joseph Stalin and raises his son with great severity. Sara sings rather than talks throughout the film, and believes Alejandro to be the reincarnation of her father because of his long blonde hair. Irritated by his wife's delusional views of their son and angered by Alejandro's behavior, which he views as cowardly and effeminate, Jaime cuts off Alejandro's hair (which is depicted as wig in what appears to be magic realism), demands he repudiate the existence of God, and puts him through tests of self-control and bravery which include withstanding being tickled, slapped, and finally undergoing a dental operation without anesthetic. Satisfied with his son's bravery, Jaime acknowledges that he respects Alejandro and arranges for him to be made the mascot of the Tocopilla fire brigade.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Brontis Jodorowsky
Jaime Jodorowsky
Marcelo Alonso
Nazi Officer
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro (adult)