Chile/ France/ 2013/ 132mins/ Spanish/ Chinese & English subtitles

The film contains nudity scenes and sexual content.

With films such as El Topo, Santa Sangre and The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky established himself as a legendary figure of truly wild surrealist cinema. After a 23-year hiatus, he returns with this triumphant “imaginary autobiography” replete with a Stalinist strong-man father, a mother who sings all her dialogue as opera and in true surrealist style, his father is played by his own son.

The director himself appears at the start of the film, equating money, blood, Christ, Buddha and the circus, suggesting that all things in life are connected in a strange web of pain and pleasure. Jodorowsky’s fantastic transformation of his childhood memories include armless men who need to scratch, spiteful clowns, a plot to assassinate a dictator through bad dog costumes and diseases that can only be cured when a loved one urinates on you. A truly refreshing blast of energy from a visionary who hasn’t been mellowed by old age.