The Dance of Reality [Blu-ray]

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky Alejandro Jodorowsky

Overview

Alejandro Jodorowsky's autobiographical The Dance of Reality is his first film after a layoff of more than two decades. His main character is himself, who, as a young man, interacts with a number of unusual people, and those interactions combined with his own exploration of art and life lead to a personal philosophy and an artistic vision that would produce such enduring works as El Topo and The Holy Mountain.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/25/2014
UPC:	0038781103795
Original Release:	2013
Rating:	NR
Source:	UNIVERSAL MUSIC DISTRIBUTION
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:09:00
Sales rank:	28,122

Special Features

What is reality?; My father's father; The art of the costumes

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Brontis Jodorowsky	Jaime,Alejandro as an Adult,Anarchist,Theosophist,Composer
Pamela Flores	Sara
Jeremias Herskowits	Alejandro as a Child
Andres Cox	Don Aquiles
Bastian Bodenhofer	Carlos Ibáñez
Sergio Vargas	Carpenter
Juan Quezada	Evangelical Pastor
Adrian Salgado	Lettuce Clown
Eugenio Morales	Carrot Clown
Italo Tai	Piripipi Payaso/Bar Owner
Carlos Cantero	Mayor
Luz Jiminez	Queen of Cups
Charles Bustos	The Bumblebee
Hugo Marin	Ice Cream Man
Nelson Gonzalez	Dentis
Rodrigo Orellana	Lieutenant Cuevas
Hellen Tabilo	Rosita
Demetrio Spataris	Professor Toro
Veronic Power	The Toña
Nicolas Deteran	Skinny Jara
Sergio Monge	One Eye Valdivia
Victor Toledo	Comrade Fierro
Ricardo Zepeda	Captain Fedraza
Tomas Alvarez	Carlitos Y Luchito
Dilan Avendaño	Boss Kid
Luis Izquierdo	Mocking Firefighter
Patricia Jara	Mocking Firefighter
Dagoberto Nuco	Mocking Firefighter
Eduardo Perez	Municipal Worker
Nelson Rojas	Chief Miner
Alejandro Sieveking	Priest
Cristobal Valderrama	Tarantula Priest
Marcelo Alonso	Lead Nazi
Sebastian Layseca	Nazi Spokesman
Andres Skoknic	Lead Torturer
Gastón Pauls	Liberator 1
Cosmo Gonik	Liberator 2
Jeremias Herskovits	Alejandro as a Child
Alisarine Ducolomb	Humpback

Technical Credits

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Moises Cosio	Producer
Michel Seydoux	Producer
Jeanne Trellu	Executive Producer
Xavier Guerrero Yamamoto	Production Manager
Jorge Carroza	Special Effects Supervisor,Special Effects Supervisor
Juan Pablo Aliaga	Special Effects Supervisor

Editorial Reviews

Chilean provocateur Alejandro Jodorowsky's long-awaited seventh feature, The Dance of Reality, begins on a surprisingly conventional note for a director commonly associated with extreme eccentricity. It's an autobiographical coming-of-age saga, with distinct echoes of Fellini's Amarcord (1974), in which a young Alejandro (Jeremias Herskovits) grows up in a seaside Chilean village under the tutelage of his voluptuous, histrionic mother Sara (Pamela Flores, who sings all of her dialogue in the style of operatic arias) and his brutal, disciplinarian father Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky). The symbolism in the early passages is arresting but lucid; it shows the young Alejandro caught up in a spiritual identity crisis, torn between embracing chthonic severity (personified by Jaime) or Olympian sexual liberation and artistic freedom (embodied by the earthy Sara). Everything that we see in the opening act -- including the village cripples and freaks, who populate one frame after another and are often covered in fluorescent body paint (echoes again of Fellini, this time of his Satyricon) -- are directly tied to this mythical tension inside of young Alejandro. We recognize not only Jodorowsky's trademark surrealist imagery throughout, but also his startling Grand Guignol humor, which is seen in a hilarious flashback sequence involving a torchbearer's violent death and a mock religious rite that has Jaime undergoing a scatological cure for the Black Plague. What we can't quite anticipate is Jodorowsky's decision to detour the narrative into a tangential substory involving Jaime's assassination plot against Chilean general Carlos Ibáñez del Campo's beloved white stallion, his subsequent regression into a homeless person on the streets of Santiago, his torture by the Nazis, or any of the other seemingly capricious events that ensue. The film grows increasingly anecdotal from the moment of the horse story's inception, but a willingness to wander is one of the famous pleasures of the director's work; even when this picture meanders, it is mercifully never boring. At more than two hours, there are numerous memorable sequences, such as Jaime's surprisingly earnest and touching encounter with a kindly old carpenter who helps rescue him from skid row. There's also a trip to an ebullient church congregation where the aggressive praise hymns lead to ugly consequences -- bringing out Jodorowsky's familiar irreverence and recalling not only the Russian roulette sequence from El Topo, but the spiritual masochism of Luis Buñuel's Simon of the Desert. There are also dozens of images throughout with an indelible potency -- from the sight of Jaime's bare upper body painted with the Chilean flag to a nude, blackened Alejandro and Sara embracing one another in an erotic Freudian dance. What it all means is open to interpretation and lies beyond the scope of this review, but Jodorowsky fans will likely spend years obsessing over and analyzing this movie -- and most will find it to be a worthy successor to the filmmaker's prior body of work.