Now at the age of 87, Alejandro Jodorowsky has written and directed another fim. I have already included on this thread such titles as
The Dance Of Reality, Sante Sangre,
The Holy Mountain, and
El Topo.On the other hand, "[t]his is the second of the five memoirs Alejandro Jodorowsky plans to shoot, the first one being
The Dance of Reality.
More to come apparently.
His films are often described as both "dramas" and "fantacies". In other words, you are able to recognize the world that we live in...but sometimes just barely. It is as though he is relating to us the life that he has lived from a first person subjunctive point of view. Here he wants to connect the dots between the here and the now [whatever that means to him] and the there and the then [however he remembers it]. How the past configures the present, and how the present reconfigures the past into a new rendition of the present.
So, what seems surreally true more or less than what is truly surreal.
He returns to his youth. He tries to convey the experiences, the forces, the epiphanies that allowed him to "free himself from the limits of his youth." And, really, how many of us can say the same? It is as though some are destined to be artists, but not all are destined to be bold enough to break the molds [and the barriers] that "society" and "family" impose on each new generation.
Still, you are never quite sure if this film is an homage to that, or a mockery of that. You in this case meaning me.
All of us are forced to create a narrative between the world around us and, in the course of actually living our lives out in one particular world, the thoughts and the feelings that come into existence "in our heads". How to make sense of it? How to attach "meaning" to it. And what to do when we bump into others who do not seem to have made the same connections.
What really is true in the end?
If nothing else prepare yourself for a visual feast.
at wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Poetrytrailer:
https://youtu.be/suyruCTA2I4ENDLESS POETRY [Poesía Sin Fin] 2016
Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Father [to Alejandro as a boy]: Look, these lousy folk look harmless, but they're thieves. Point if you see them stealing.
...
Father: Garcia Lorca! He speaks of love, but he is a faggot! Like all poets, all painters, all dancers, all actors! If you read this filth, you'll end up like him!
...
Drunk [to Alejandro as a boy] : Don't worry, young man. A naked virgin will illuminate your path with a blazing butterfly.
...
Alejandro [to himself as a boy]: That drunk, whom wine had made a prohet, pulled me out of the abyss with a single sentence.Cue the typewriter
Alejandro: Poetry, you shall illuminate my life like a blazing butterfly!
...
Father [to Alejandro after an earthquake]: See, it was nothing. Let's count the money.
...
Alejandro: Family! Fucking family! You shits!!
...
Ricardo: Alejandro, your rebellious act was worthy of a poet. Without saying a word, you said it all....I'll take you to the Cerecada sisters.
...
Ricardo: This is where my friends live, Carmen abbd Veronica Cerecada. I've never seen their parents. I don't know if they're orphans or millionaires. All I know is that they love art above all things.
...
Ricardo: I want to live without a mask. But I'm Naum's son. I have to be an architect, get married, have two children.
Carmen: Dare, Ricardo!
Ricardo: He'd die. The scandal would kill him.
Carmen: Take off your mask. Be bold. Be bold!
...
Alejandro [aloud to himself after Ricardo kisses him]: I felt noithing! I'm not a faggot! I told you so, Papa!What to make of that?
Carmen [to all of the artists]: The miracle we call chance has sent us this poet. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Let us welcome him!
...
Sella [the poetess]: You people are nothing!
...
Alejandro: Yes, I'm following you.
Stella: Open your eyes.
Alejandro: They say you write poems. I do too. May I read yours?
Stella: You're only interested in my poems? Not my ass or breasts?
...
Stella: Wait. Tell me, what is poetry to you?
Alejandro: It's the luminius excrement of a toad that's swallowed a firefly.
Stella: My dear little friend, I'm too big a firefly for your mouth.
Alejandro: I don't need to swallow you. You are my soul.Get it? No? Fortunately, that doesn't matter.
Stella: Shit! My kingdom for a beer!
...
Alejandro [looking up at Ricardo hanging from a streetlight]: Ricardo!
Stella: What? Did you know him?
Alejandro: He was my cousin.
Stella: What a thought, to commit suicide in front of the University of Chile!
Alejandro: He didn't want to become an archetect.
Stella: "Like a bird, like the enthralls of a tree, you reached the end of a quest, defeated and doomed for having silenced the soul you concealed."
...
Stella: Alejandro, there is nothing you can do for him.
Alejandro: But there is something I need to do for myself. Stella, I don't know who I am anymore. I've turned into a mirror that only reflects your image. I no longer want to live in the chaos you create!
...
Alejandro: I beg you, let me recover. Give me a few days of solitude.
Stella [backing away from him]: We'll meet at Cafe Iris at midnight sharp in forty days time.
...
Veronica: Eat, Alejandro. You've been shut away for forty days, making puppets without setting foot outside. Why?
Alejandro: I feel empty. I sculpt faces because I've lost mine. I haven't found myself. Perhaps tonight at midnight I'll become the mirror of that awful woman again.
...
Alejandro [to his collection of humanity]: If daily life seems like hell, if it can be summed up in two words, "permanent impermanence" we must listen to the Bible: "There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and have his soul rejoice!"You know, given that daily life really can seem like a hell.
Enrique "If life is nothing but madness..."
Alejandro: Who is the poet behind a mirror?"
Veronica: He's Enrique Lihn.
Enrique: "Such is my poetry: sighted darkness/I am but my own absence/behind a broken mirror"
...
Alejandro: Even poetry written on the floor. This wonderful work will all be lost.
Enrique: Everything will vanish. Our souls will disappear. It doesn't matter. Dreams vanish too, and little by little we dissolve. Poetry, like the shadow of a flying eagle, leaves no trace on land. A poem reaches perfection when it burns.
...
Alejandro [to himself as a young man]: I am the man you will be. You are the man I was. You devoted yourself to poetry and I do not regret it.
Alejandro [as a yound man]: What will I achieve?
Alejandro: You will learn to die in happiness.
Alejandro [as a young man]: I am afraid to die.
Alejandro: You're afraid of living.
Alejandro [as a young man]: I'm afraid of disappointing others.
Alejandro: You are not guilty of living as you do. You'd be guilty if you lived as others want you to live.
Alejandro [as a young man]: What is the meaning of life?
Alejandro: Life! The brain asks questions, the heart gives the answers. Life does not have meaning, you must live it. Live! Live! Live!Meaning what exactly? Though point taken. But then just when you thought things could not possibly become more surreal....
Alejandro: Wake up poet.
Enrique: Better to be asleep than awake. Better to be dead. Better to not have been born.
Alejandro: Enough, Enrique! You're destroying yourself. We won't let you kill yourself.
Enrique: Nothingness is everything. You're wasting your time.
Alejandro: Life is everything. It isn't you suffering. It's the image you've made of yourself. You're a poet! Perceive reality differently.
...
Father: The house burned down. Your home. The furniture, clothes, beds!
Alejandro: My writing and books?
Father: Your writing and books? I don't give a fuck about them! How can you ask such a stupid thing? The money burned!
...
Alejandro [staring at himself in a mirror]: And you? Who are you? What is the purpose of your existence? Why are you alive?
His reflection: I have never been alive. I was born dead. Another dead man among the dead.
Alejandro [after walking away from the mirror]: Another dead man among the dead. I will grow old, die, rot. Nothingness will swallow my memory, my words, my consciousness. Everything that is mine in the dark depths of oblivion. These streets will disappear too. My friends, the city, the planet! The Moon, the Sun, the stars! The entire universe. Damned reflection. What do I do with this anguish you've injected in me?!
...
Alejandro [to himself as a young man...and to the camera]: Old age is not a humliiation. You detach yourself from everything. From sex, from fortune, from fame. You detach yourself from yourself. You turn into a butterfly...a radiant butterfly. A being of pure light.Trust me: Not all of us.
Nicanor: As you can see, your favorite poet is now a maths teacher in this engineering school. What brings you here?
Alejandro: Well, since I've distanced myself from my father, I'd like your advice. I want to devote my body and soul to poetry.
Nicanor: Are you mad?! Nobody pays for books any more, even less for poetry. What you have to do is study, get a degree, and work as a teacher, like me. Don't burn your bridges.
Alejandro: A butterfly mustn't turn into flies. Nor poets into teachers.
Nicanor: I'm a teacher and have turned into a fly. The world is what it is, you won't change it.
Alejandro: I can't change the world, but I can start to change it.
Nicanor: Really? How?
Alejandro: By changing myself. I will burn my bridges, Mr. Parra. Adios.Cue Ibanez and the fascists. Later, Allende and Pinochet.
Father: Not saying goodbye to your father? Your friend Veronica told me you were leaving Chile with empty pockets, and that I need to help you. But I cannot and will not finance such a stupid decision. You don't speak a word of French! What will you live on? Your little poems? Come back to the shop. I need a helper.
Aleandro: What you need is a slave! You're not a father! You never hugged me or spoke affectionaitely.
Father: Men don't touch each other, or say sweet things to one another.
Alejandro: When I vomited bitter tears, begging for a bit of affection, a bit of attention, you let me cry for hours.
Father: I comfort no one. You've become such a faggot!
Aleandro [enraged]: I'm not a faggot. I'm not like you. I have the heart of a poet. A heart capable of loving the entire world!
Father: Listen to me. You'll starve in the gutter!
Alejandro: You'll die surrounded by knickers and stockings stained with the blood of the workers!
...
Father: I didn't know. I always had good intentions. Don't leave without shaking my hand.
[Alejandro shakes his hand...then Alexandro of the present intervenes]
Alejandro [beckoning them to hug]: No. Like this.
[He looks to Alejandro as a young man]
Alejandro: You went to France and never saw him again. When he died you didn't shed a tear. But beneath your indifference your heart was saying, "Father, by giving me nothing, you gave me everything. By not loving me you taught me love is absolutely necessary. By denying God you taught me to value life.
Alejandro [of the present]: I forgive you father. You gave him the strength to bear this world, in which poetry no longer exists. Recognize your father. Remove his mask.