Director Report Card: Alejandro Jodorowsky (2016)

8. Endless Poetry

It took Alejandro Jodorowsky twenty-three years to make another movie after “The Rainbow Thief” soured him on the cinematic experience. The director, well into eighties by this point, did not wait much longer to get back into the filmmaking groove again after that. Perhaps motivated to finish telling his story with the limited time he had left, Jodorowsky would quickly get to work on “Endless Poetry,” the next chapter in his autobiographical saga, not long after “The Dance of Reality” came out. After successful crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, Jodorowsky could push forward with his next attempt at a cinematic memoir. Playing festivals in 2016 and getting a general release in 2018, it was another well received new film from the aged master of surrealism.

Picking up not long after “The Dance of Reality” left off, the film follows a teenage Alejandro as his parents move him from his home in Tocopilla to Santiago, Chile. Despite his insistence that he's changed, Alejandro's father Jaime is soon back to his old, abusive ways. After becoming fed up with his parents' behavior, Alejandro cuts down his mother's beloved tree in retaliation. This impresses a homosexual cousin of Alejandro, who introduces the budding poet to a community of artists living in the city. Soon, Alejandro is growing into a young man, eager to explore the world, find love, and expand his artistic endeavors.

“Endless Poetry” is a film based on real life and real life doesn't have a three act structure. Thus, Jodorowsky's eighth feature film has little in the way of forward plot. Instead, “Endless Poetry” is mostly composed of different episodes from the filmmaker's young life. He wanders through various career paths, starting as a puppeteer, then focusing on poetry, evolving into a performance artist, occasionally working as a burglar, and even spending some time as a clown. He carves puppets for a couple who are traveling apart, as a way for them to remember each other. He has encounters with a woman who introduces him to Tarot, via a bizarre ritual. He encounters many colorful characters. Even if it lacks much in the way of a proper plot, “Endless Poetry” is too constantly filled with memorable incidents to ever be boring.

“Endless Poetry” is almost literally a portrait of an artist as a young man. After discovering a book of poetry, young Alejandro become fascinated with the artform. Yet his father demanded he studied to become a doctor instead, insisting his son have a money-making career. Only after leaving home and truly escaping his father's venomous grasp is Jodorowsky allowed to grow. Something “Endless Poetry” is wonderful at is showing the sense of community the director felt in his bohemian days. Everyone in his commune live for their art. A ballerina is on her tippy-toes at all times. A pair of "symbiotic dancers" are always carrying one another. A would-be opera singer sings all his dialogue. A film all about feeling a love for an art so intensely that it takes over your whole life, “Endless Poetry” beautifully captures the obsession and fixation of youthful growth.

More than just about anyone else out there, Alejandro Jodorowsky is an expert at blending the real and the dream-like. The film is inspired by intimate, personal memories for the director, explaining the lyrical feeling that characterizes the entire film. Dream-like touches drift in and out of the movie's reality. Stagehands dressed totally in-black weave in and out of certain scenes. In a brilliant moment, life-sized, black-and-white photographs are used to restore the town of Alejandro's youth to the glory he remembers. As in his previous film, the elder Jodorowsky appears to consult and comfort his younger self, cementing the idea of a filmmaker exorcising his own youthful demons by making a movie about it. “Endless Poetry” truly feels like a mystical memory brought to life.

Since this is an Alejandro Jodorowsky movie we're talking about here, those are far from the only surreal touches in the movie. Ideas are literalized through bizarre visuals. Such as the head of young Alejandro's father appearing, yelling discouragement at the boy as he considers his new passion. As a conservative government takes power in Chile, and Alejandro decides to leave the country, he puts inexpressive masks and Nazi flags in the marchers' hands. A thief being killed leads to an intentionally artificial plum of guts slipping from his belly. Inserting acts of surrealism into daily life was, apparently, a real habit of Jodorowsky's. After forging a friendship with Enrique Lihn, the two would go marching through people's homes or would throw raw meat at stuffy art crowds. It is unsurprising that Jodorowsky would express his credo of turning dreams and visions into reality not just through his films but in his actual life.

As much as Jodorowsky inserts dream-like imagery into his autobiography, "Endless Poetry" is largely a story of self-acceptance. Acts of forgiveness and gentle realization occur all throughout the film. At a party Alejandro throws, a man reveals to his wife that he has no hands, his wife allowing him to embrace her with his stumps. When a dwarf presents her naked body to Alejandro, he accepts her. She was dating his best friend at the time, which leads to a tearful reunion later, full of soft caresses. Learning to forgive and accept extends to the self, depicted during a sequence where Alejandro chastises himself in front of a crowded circus audience. 

It's easy to see where this idea originated. "Endless Poetry" is a movie concerned with leaving behind childhood. Alejandro carries a broken-up tricycle around in several scenes, before abandoning it for a typewriter, representing him leaving behind childish things and choosing his destiny as a poet. When he learns that his childhood home has burned down, he's overjoyed, as it allows him to completely leave his old life behind. Yet the director clearly has some regrets about his youth. "Endless Poetry's" final scene has Alejandro leaving Chile for France, rejecting his father's philosophies once and for all. He would never see him again. Yet, as the filmmaker reflects, he adds a tender coda, father and son gently kissing each other. His father was asshole but he, nevertheless, had a hand in shaping the person Jodorowsky became. 

That kiss is extra significant for another reason. Jodorowsky has talked a lot over the years about how intensely homophobic his father was, how he never even hugged his son once for fear of looking gay. Like a lot of toxic men, his father considered an emotional expression like poetry a less-than-masculine pursuit. When Alejandro's cousin kissed him, and he felt nothing, the poet was overjoyed because it was definitive proof to himself that he wasn't gay. Which is a funny and somewhat sweet scene. What is more baffling is a latter sequence where Alejandro enters a gay bar and is almost gang-raped by the men inside. It's an ugly, cartoonish moment - that concludes with a neon penis crashing to the floor - suggests the filmmaker maybe inherited more of his dad's hang-ups then he realized.

Naturally, a big part of being a young person and forging your own paths are first loves. Which Jodorowsky puts his own spin on naturally. After seeing her beating people up in a cage, Alejandro begins a relationship with Stella Diaz Varin. Varin had quite an outrageous persona for the time but Jodorowsky imagines her as an even bigger-than-life figure. She's depicted with Kool-Aid red hair, gold paint on her frequently displayed breasts, skulls tattooed down her back, and particular rituals around her sex life. To a boy who had grown up in a cloistered home with traditionalist parents, an exciting woman surely did seem this new and outrageous.

To portray his younger self, Jodorowsky cast his youngest son, Adan. (Who previously appeared in "Santa Sangre" as young Fennix.) Playing your own father in the story of his life must be an odd experience but Adan gives a commendable performance. Given the theatrical, dream-like world Jodorowsky's work exist in, Adan still managed to give a very human and grounded performance. His late-in-the-film act as a clown is especially well done. Alejandro's oldest son, Brontis, reprises the role of his grandfather from "The Dance of Reality." His acting continues to be impressively fiery, finding an emotional heart to Jaime's frequently dickish behavior.

As with “The Dance of Reality,” “Endless Poetry” is also a gorgeous looking movie. Christopher Doyle returns as cinematographer. The colors pop fantastically. The camera movements are evocative and expressive. This is most obvious during a parade sequence, where whole crowds of people wear piercing red devil costumes. The set and production design is also fantastic. The two elements work together notably to create wide, impressive vistas even inside interior sets. Such as a fantastic shot, involving a giant chair Alejandro has built for his apartment. 

”Endless Poetry” ends in a way that recalls the ending to “The Dance of Reality.” Supposedly, Jodorowsky intended to film his autobiography as a five film cycle. Which probably explains why the first two films only cover up through his twenties, before he even started making movies. Considering Jodorowsky is in his nineties, it seems unlikely that we'll get the other three installments. (Perhaps one of his kids will pick up where he left off some day.) Though undoubtedly as pretentious and self-aggrandizing as anything else the director has made, “Endless Poetry” is still a gorgeous, moving, and beautifully assembled motion picture. It shows that cult cinema's premier shaman has never lost a step. [Grade: A-]