Review: Santa Sangre 1989

Santa Sangre is a very artistic, surrealist Spanish horror film. (Yes, it requires subtitles.) It’s completely bizarre and opens with a scene of a naked man, Fenix, perched atop a tall “tree”. It’s pretty clear we are in a mental institution, then a group of nurses come in and the man proceeds to swing down with an inhuman screech, seeing that they have brought him a raw fish to eat… We see that he has a large tattoo of a phoenix covering his chest, then we are taken back to his childhood. The first half of the movie is sees through the eyes of Fenix when he was a boy, about 10 years old. Much of what we see is over simplified, or perhaps even exaggerated. Basically, we see things however Fenix remembers them. Fenix grew up in a traveling circus. His father, a hypnotist/knife thrower, is a big, chauvinistic, jerk and his mother, an trapeze acrobat who swings by her hair, is impulsive, weak, and more than a little insane… His father is having a not-so-secret affair with his “assistant” is the “tattooed lady”. At first, we see that Fenix’s mother, Concha, has fallen in with an interesting ‘crowd’…she is the leader of a religious ‘blood cult’ that consists entirely of women. This movie is extremely symbolic and bizarre, every detail is meaningful. After her “church” is bulldozed, (ahem, by men..) Concha returns to her family and the circus life. The tattooed lady is a horrible woman, but she has an ‘adopted’ daughter, Alma. Alma is Fenix’s little friend, and the small ray of sunshine in his life as things go from bad to worse.
The second half of the movie is a little more confusing, I believe we are still seeing things from Fenix’s point of view, but now he’s grown up. The toll his childhood took on his mind is stark raving clear, and we go from seeing things through the eyes of an anguished child, to seeing “reality” through the eyes of a man, driven to madness. A LOT happens in this movie, it’s NOT for everyone. The viewer is bombarded with surreal and often unpleasant, graphic images.. But if you can open your mind up, then it’s an amazing experience if you think you can handle it.