Poésie sans fin

88 year old art, poetry, movie, theatre and spirituality guru Alejandro Jodorowsky returns with another bonkers screen story about his youth, which does not resemble any other thing you may be used to catching at your local multiplex. Jodorowsky's younger self is played by his 37 year old son Adan – think Andy Samberg without a stupid grin – and the story narrates the artist's youth during which he liberated himself from all of his former limitations, including strict parents, and was introduced into the bohemian artistic circle of 1940s Chile. If you are like me – familiar mostly with mainstream cinema and not familiar with Jodorowsky at all – „Poesía sin fin" („Endless Poetry") will be most curious experience indeed. The 128-minute journey resembles experimental play rather than movies as we like to think about them in traditional sense, but in this case, it's a good thing. The resulting comic-dramatic-weirdness explosion is packing so many enjoyable things and details to digest that only very smart people really „get it", probably. But first and foremostly, art is not for the mind, and just by watching I can tell that the movie has lot of heart. It could probably benefit from being shorter, the last third feels a bit stretched out – maybe because the visual side feels so rich and inventive that it wears many down eventually. But the whole thing is so unusual and good-weird that it's easy to recommend it. If you watch at least ten minutes from the start, you will know if this kind of thing is right for you. Even if it's not your cup of tea, you would probably like some parts of Jodorowsky's seemingly endless inventiveness and wackiness. It may go on for too long, but the ending is powerful, especially if you are familiar with depth psychology and symbolics related with it. Jodorowsky is. During his colorful life, the man has founded his own therapeutic practice psychomagic which uses aspects of eastern philosophies, mysticism and psychoanalysis to heal patients with emotional problems. You know, just saying.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time! Thank you. rating = infinity hearts

There is no doubt that Poesía Sin Fin represents the highest and most astounding manifestation of Jodorowsky's cinematic work.

The Film is a pure, honest and unpretentious expression of the director's youth. It is a journey which takes us by the hand and invites us to see the world differently, through the eyes of the poet ; for whom the possibility of a Life filled with drive, desire, wonder and ultimately, freedom, liberated him from the person he was not.

A must-see masterpiece rich with many many layers of interpretation ; from the most naive youth-driven imaginary to the deepest most mature form of reflection and expression.

Cinema that heals, cinema that explores, cinema that inspires, truly and deeply.

There's hope for the return of Jodo in the first scenes, where the real street is transformed by roll down monochrome photo mural drapes into the street of his youth and we see the child in the shop where his dinero-dominated dad encourages him to put the boot into shop lifters, stripping them naked in the street while his singing mum creates strawberry sponge cakes like the one her brother choked on for her tortured mum.

However it soon becomes obvious that we are in for two hours plus of not very clever ideas punctuated by some striking images in Christopher Doyle's brilliant colours and some kinky sex that loses it's shock impact at this length. Concepts - the broken mirror,monochrome Cafe Iris, real Jodo's appearances, the bunraku black covered scenery changers, the circle of bohemian artists led by the pierette - come back not as motifs but as indications that the maker has run out of new ideas.

We get about half an hour of great material buried in the pretentious and increasingly un-funny stodge.

"Every path is my path."

In this autobiographical film, Jodorowsky has his father, played by his son, making love to his mother, and himself, played by another son, carousing from one woman to the next. As usual with him, anything goes, and nothing is taboo. It's kind of sweet that his vision of his mother is a giving person who always sings her lines, and his domineering father, intent on having his son become a doctor, is quite a contrast. The final moments between father and son, where the real Jodorowsky intervenes and with the benefit of age, constructs a better ending, is touching.

Mostly the story of Jodorowsky surrounding himself with fellow artists and kindred spirits, at times the film seemed a little self-serving and threatened to become banal with its platitudes that were along the lines "be yourself," but there was something pure about him trying to communicate his story and guiding principles, seen through the warping of a surrealist perspective. The principles are given to us rather directly, often by the elderly Jodorowsky himself, resulting in a film that's more accessible / less surrealistic, and more heartfelt / less artistic, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. Personally, I liked it, and saw it as Jodorowsky's version of himself in the same vein as Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (among others), something that felt every bit as personal and presented with the director's unique aesthetic.

A few more quotes, some more poetic than others, but the truths the elderly Jodorowsky wanted to communicate about life: "My aim is to return to what I have always been."

"Where there are ears but no song in this evanescent world, Where the Being surrenders to the undeserving, I am more my footprints than my steps."

"What is the meaning of life?" "Life! The brain asks questions, the heart gives the answers. Life does not have meaning, you have to live it! Live! Live! Live!"

"Life is a game. You have to laugh at everything, even the worst things!"

"Old age is not a humiliation. You detach yourself from everything. From sex, from wealth, from fame. You detach yourself from yourself. You turn into a butterfly, a radiant butterfly, a being of pure light!"