The second of Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s biographical series of hybrid docs (in a planned five) is called “Endless Poetry,” an unfortunately ironic title since the film quickly turns into an endurance test for people who aren’t hardcore fans. During his long and fascinating career, Jodorowsky has gifted us with ground-shaking midnight classics in “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain,” but it’s his most recent predilection for finding out who he was as a young man that’s turned the director back to the camera after a 23-year hiatus. First came “The Dance Of Reality” in 2014, which soars to much superior heights compared to the unfettered nature of ‘Poetry.’ Where his latest is obstinate and oftentimes incoherent, ‘Dance’ plays much more successfully with the function of memory itself, going off on unpredictable tangents you can’t help but blindly follow with glee. With “Endless Poetry,” however, you’re fidgeting and wanting to take the blindfold off by the half-way mark.
READ MORE: Review: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Joyous, Absurdist ‘The Dance Of Reality’
‘Poetry’ picks up exactly where ‘Reality’ left off, as the Jodorowsky family moves from Tocopilla to Santiago, Chile, and young Alejandro (Jeremias Herskovitz) leaves his childhood impressions behind. His parents, Jaime (Jodorowsky’s son Brontis) and Sara (Pamela Flores, still singing all her dialogue beautifully), open a modest shop and continue to survive as best they know how, with little Alejandrito becoming an antsier rebel as he grows into a young adult. It’s not long before he does grow up, literally overnight, into his 20-something self (played by the director’s younger son, Adan). Determined to become a poet, he leaves his parents behind and joins an artistic circle, through which he meets his muse at Cafe Iris, a red-headed phoenix of a woman called Stella (Flores again), becomes a puppeteer, meets fellow poet Enrique (Leandro Taub), and goes through a series of (mis)adventures with the odds and sods of Santiago’s underground artisans.
Through it all, Alejandro is in the process of finding his inner artist, the director himself appearing sparsely (as he does in ‘Dance Of Reality’) to break the fourth wall and light an epiphanous bulb for his younger self. Once it ends, you may be panting from exhaustion while still appreciating that “Endless Poetry” is greater than the sum of its parts as it feels naturally necessary and appropriately organic to the series. Full of life’s lessons in how to approach art among other things — a highlight sees Alejandro and Enrique stubbornly walking a straight line even with obstacles like trucks and beds in their way — and Fellini-esque in its circus rhythms, ‘Poetry’ ultimately fails to engage with its individual parts and numerous side-show characters. These include heart-broken dwarves and a few other of Alejandro’s friends whom we never get a chance to truly meet in order to properly invest in their whims and woes.
All of this made me miss the absence of the deeply complex and conflicted Jaime from the first film, as portrayed by the wonderfully entertaining and intense Brontis (who still has the best performance from either film). Jodorowsky’s younger son, Adan, and Flores as the dominating muse Stella, turn in impassioned performances, but there’s something in the screenplay this time around that doesn’t have the same serendipitous magic that sweeps you up in the rush of joyous, hurtling life. If there are any sprinkles of Jodorowsky’s surrealist fairy dust to be found anywhere, it’s in the gorgeous aesthetics. The production design, and the cinematography by the remarkable Christopher Doyle, turn local joint Cafe Iris into a black-and-white Kafkaesque environment full of sharp edges and designer shadows, while the camera makes ramshackle warehouses and apartment buildings feel so alive you half-expect the walls to start moving at any second. Watch for a short scene in a bawdy cafe that’s part “A Clockwork Orange,” part “Desperado” in look, as Stella defends Alejandro with her “vengeful vagina.” It’s unadulterated Jodorowsky genius peaking as all the film’s strengths explode into each other.
For most of it, though, the Chilean maestro foregoes his signature fantastical flourishes for a more straightforward depiction of his uprooted 20s. Black-masked figures appear as stagehands to silently aid characters by moving objects around — providing much needed chuckles in a film that’s surprisingly bereft of the director’s usual humor — but they’re too random and inexplicable to retain our focus. As an exercise in free-will filmmaking and imaginative mise-en-scène, “Endless Poetry” is bliss, but it’s missing that euphoric enthusiasm and mnemonic layering from ‘Reality.’ When the director pushes the young Alejandro in one scene and tells him, “Life has no meaning! It’s just meant to be lived! Live!” a woman sitting in front of me quickly scuttled her things and walked out, as if to say, “You know what? He’s right.” That’s the film in a nutshell; as good as some of what it’s saying is, you may not want to stick around for the whole thing. [C+/B-]
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