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jack_babalon
Last night I was accidently initiated into the visceral surrealism of Fernando Arrabal's cult classic I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse. I found the film by pure chance actually, tucked away in the corner of Videodrome where the more eclectic movies are kept from the uneducated whims of their more casual customers. This is where the good shit is kept kids. A hide in plain sight secret stash of Jodorowsky's, Warhol's and the apocalyptic mash-ups of Craig Baldwin. It was filed with some seriously esteemed company as far as I was concerned. I checked out the back of the box and saw enough to develop a nagging intuition if you will, a shrug rather than a leap of faith.
The two cinehipsters working the register exchanged looks when they read the rental ticket. A bemused arching of brows, the conspiratorial bobbing of chins between carnies and that evil smirk army recruiters give you once you've signed your name on the dotted lines.
"You're in for quite a trip" the rockabilly pompadoured kid said typing in my name into their computer. The other one with his bushy Van Gogh beard snorted a laugh and just shook his head to himself as he rang up my card.
I play the rube stoically. Figure the Randall from Clerks routine is one of the few perks to the job. In the parlance of their peers... whatever.
Teddy Bear arrives at my front door in his paddy cap and three day old beard. We talk writing for a bit. Pitching each other ideas casually and refining nuances of plot through a fog of chain smoked camels. Finally I ask if he wants to check out this flick I just rented. Spanish surrealism of some sort. Buñuel lite maybe but might be worth a damn. He gives a polite 'why not' to the prospect.
What follows is a fever dream parade: An unfolding spectacle of oedipal horror montages, laughing midget messiahs, circus animals, dadaistic gore, gas masked firing squads, eucharist cannabalism, transexual shaman seduction, primal screams galore and random flashbacks.
At times we were forced into shocked silence then just as suddenly we had to giggle in disbelief at the sheer absurdity of the scene. Naked women climbing scaffolding to make out with skeletons strung up in the rafters. The messiah character who we dubbed as "Jesus-Borat". The 101 uses for goat urine. After awhile it becomes sheer "I laugh so I do not weep" territory.
Basically what he does is out "Jodorowsky's" Jodorowsky. But only for pure visual shock. After the pagentry and the archetype parade have passed you begin to realize that Arrabal lacks a certain sense of subtlety in his vision. The symbols explode rather than emerge across the consciousness. The difference between Holy Mountain and I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse is the difference between a magicians wand and a cudgel.
Though to be fair both men belonged to the same avant garde movement in the late 60's/early 70's. "The Panic Movement" to be exact. A Parisian collective of artists influenced by a combination of the Great God Pan and Artaud's Theatre Of Cruelty that believed surrealism had lost it's edge over the years and had become little more than the aesthetic lap dog of the Petite bourgeoisie.
Comparasions and similarities are bound to occur.
In summation: This is cinema for the daring (to be honest I haven't winced this much since I was a kid watching slasher flicks through a veil of splayed fingers). Be brave. Yes there be monsters out in these Jungian waters for certain but persist! There are treasures also!
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no subject
on 2007-08-23 05:01 pm (UTC)xxx
no subject
on 2007-08-23 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-08-23 06:09 pm (UTC)...hmmm ... mushrooms?
no subject
on 2007-08-23 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-08-23 06:15 pm (UTC)Yeah... I'm paraphrasing.
no subject
on 2007-08-23 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-08-24 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-08-25 07:00 am (UTC)You may want to check out Sante Sangre