Poésie sans fin

I thought a few things within the movie were a bit too extreme for me, but none the less I still had an overall great experience with this film. From the start, you immediately get sucked into this world of wonder and excitement, there's this underlying message to it that feels preachy, but for some reason, it never feels forced. I had fun with this movie, it was bright, it was colorful, and it was absurd, but I believe it had a poignant message to it.

For a more in-depth review, check out my video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDS4f-R8wC4

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.

Endless Poetry is absolutely, incessantly, unceremoniously weird, but kind of astonishing. In other words, a typical Jodorowsky film. Continuing his saga of semi-autobiographical films, this tells the tale of Jodorowsky in youth discovering the power of poetry and living out a culturally enriched, eccentric fantasy. T he film is immediately arresting, by virtue of its strangeness. People in black suits appear to take items out of characters hands at random moments across the film. One of the characters sings every line she has, for no explicable reason. There is so much imagery packed into each frame that any attempt to understand their meaning is pointless. Endless Poetry is amovie that most people would probably not have the patience for. Under objective terms, it verges on incoherent, pretentious, unintentionally funny and flagrantly self-aggrandising (imagine if Scorsese, Nolan or even David O'Russell decided to make a trilogy of films about their own lives) where very little makes sense. But Jodorowsky films defy categorisation. There's this peculiar, unique spell the film takes on where a minority of the audience will become enraptured in the pure strangeness, as well as Jodorowsky's infectious enthusiasm and "joie de vivre" that pours out of every frame.

Being a Jodorowsky fan I enjoyedthis, but this film is certainly not for every one. However if you arelooking for something incredibly different to watch, perhaps you willfind the endearing, beautiful, non-hagiographic ode to life that i found, or you will hate it and switch it off after ten minutes. For me, anyway, it was a film that offered many rewards, especially as Jodorowsky is a filmmaker so wondrously unique that anything he makes is immediately compelling.

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.

Alejandro Jodorowsky's visually-exaggerated fantastical portrayal of his own past continues, beginning by cleverly playing off imagery from the first film, THE DANCE OF REALITY (2013), and thus making it clear that this is an ongoing narrative.

In this case we see young boy Alejandro arriving in Santiago Chile with his strong-willed father and his mother with her unique form of communicating... There, he grows into a teenager and then a young man who discovers his greatest desire is to become a poet, against the wishes of his father. Leaving his family he seeks out other artists and the unhindered artist lifestyle. The unique characters he meets on his journey...well, that's a big part of the story.

There were a couple scenes in this film that seemed slightly self indulgent, which detracted from the feeling of complete pure story that I experienced with the first film. But that's not intended as a strong criticism of the entire film. It felt like a middle film in a trilogy sometimes feels, having it's points to make. Overall, it's an entertaining continuation and is at times emotionally powerful.

The original plan was to film five "memoirs" total...I hope he makes it to the end.