Hold me closer Tony Danza de la Realidad as we floss with Who's the Boss in Alejandro Jodorowsky's super surrealist soup of sway.

Who IS the boss? A priest, rabbi, iman or Theosphist? Is it Ibanez or his horse that pulls the strings? Jamie, his dad or is it him?!! All hail the man the imagination the surreality -as it wraps and wrestles, sings and skips with Alejandro's family tree.

Episode 22 parses Alejandro Jodorowsky’s La Danza de la Realidad as an intentional negotiation between memory and imagination. I describe how the film stages memory as a theatrical arena where signs and tableaux carry more emotional force than documental fidelity. We note scenes that blur factuality and invention: the child’s wig and its violent removal, the painted darkness danced with the mother, the sardines erupting into birds, and the failed assassination framed as both tragicomedy and moral parable.

I argue that Jodorowsky sought therapeutic revisioning: he reimagines trauma through symbolic acts to reshape meaning. We treat surreal imagery not as evasion but as method. The film becomes a ritual of remembrance that enacts healing by transmuting pain into emblematic gestures, and we foreground the ethical tension that arises when symbolic reworkings risk literal ambiguity for the viewer.

The formation of the soul is a seed in the earth forged in pressure, blooming through trauma.

Divine mother, singer of arias Violence takes the limbs from a miner in an act of endless cruelty.

The acrid scent of sulfur is the last gravestone where innocence mourns at midday by the deathbed of an absent father or the bedside of a son who accepts affection in the slap of abuse's caress.

We live in a world of dogs dressed up as lions.

One suffering is another's pleasure.

Homophobic chauvinism, masked insecurity, an aversion to kindness, to the laughter of children.

Those who piss have prayers as well.

Real Poets is an audio only podcast that can also be visually read like roses or When a director juxtaposes his or her most imposing reposes with characters, settings and themes composed of thrilling soundscapes, highest of stakes and dreams.

Hosted by a duo of real poets about real poets and the real poetry they've written and the films that have been written about them and their work.

Join us each week as we talk to another real poet with something to say and how a real poetry movie influenced them in some way.

Then we each write a new poem inspired by our most recent viewing of the film and share it with all of you.

Hello.

Hello, folks out there.

Welcome to Untitled.

Welcome to us.

Real Poetry for now.

And maybe that's what it is.

And we are here with part two of our exploration into Jodorowsky's autobiographical experiment.

And this one, actually.

But this is.

It's funny because we kind of Tarantinoed it, right?

We saw Part two first, which was Endless Poetry.

And today we're here to talk about La Danza de la Realidad, or the Dance of Reality, which is part one.

What happens in his early childhood.

And again, Scott, not to put you on the spot, Scott, but this is.

Jodorowsky is somebody who's heavily influenced your life as an artist, and a lot of the things that you as a person are concerned with are influenced by him.

Do you want to give us a little bit of an intro into the.

Dance of Reality, into World of Alejandro and my connection to him?

Yes.

Yeah.

You called it an experiment, this film, I would say, as in a lot of his films, it's a journey, it's a spiritual journey, often from his imagination.

And what I really love about the work of Alejandrosky is that oftentimes he is depicting real things on the screen, real people on the screen that they themselves seem like they are going through something, in addition to the actors that are going through representing what they're going through.

So there's this poeticism kind of envelops his whole.

His whole processes.

This movie is filled with, you know, local.

I'd say there's a, you know, disabled folks, there's dwarves, there's.

There's people of.

Of his region that are going through something.

There's his sons that are in this movie, and he himself, of course, where, like, you as a viewer are going through something, the actors are going through something, acting as well as they're going through something as their real.

Their real Personas.

And, yeah, I try to, you know, do that a little bit with.

With poetry as well, you know, have the audience go through.

Go through something.

And the act of writing something for me is often a spiritual journey that I like to come to something.

And, you know, what act can it.

Can it inspire or kind of lead you to.

All in all, you know, this.

This film, this we watched in different order, but I don't know if I liked watching it in reverse this time, too, because parts of it, as we had talked a little bit, are imaginary.

Right.

Parts of it are imagination based where you don't know necessarily if it.

If it.

If it happened.

It can almost, you know, it could go in any.

In any direction with.

With the boat.

But.

Yeah.

Anxious to talk to you about this.

This movie and, you know, whether we like this one better than the other one, whether this was more poetic than Endless Poetry.

Endless Poetry was.

Was about poetry, but this one, to me, feels even more poetic in a way.

Yeah, I'd love to explore that.

And when I think of this movie, I was doing some research.

I'll go into some.

Some trivia.

So it's interesting that this subject matter, which now we know, he's, I don't want to say struggled, but contended with his whole life.

It brought him back at a more advanced age to tackle.

But when I was researching it, I saw what the log line was, and it's forget the past, remember the lesson.

And for me, this movie even more so.

And I want to go into the similarities and differences between La Danza and Endless Poetry.

But this movie is an exploration of memory and the role that memory plays.

Right.

So, for example, do you.

You don't live the life you imagined.

You imagine the life you lived is another saying that comes to mind when it comes to this movie.

It's like How.

How accurate are your memories?

And the way that he represents his story is through the surrealist landscape of very symbolic images, which I'd like to.

I mean, I can go on.

On that, but can we start there?

Can we talk about reality versus fantasy in terms of memory and remembrance?

Because poetry definitely goes into memory and remembrance.

Taken from the title itself.

It is the Dance of reality.

The dance.

What is our relationship to what is real and what is not?

You're dancing on reality, you're dancing around reality, you're dancing through reality.

He's known as a surrealist, you know, film filmmaker, but chooses this word, you know, reality, in.

In the title.

The dance.

The dance of reality.

Yeah, the.

The way this.

The way this film moves through.

Through time is.

Is.

Is important.

There are a couple scenes too, that there's literal dancing, you know, that.

That actually happens.

But it all, to me feels.

Feels.

Yeah, almost.

Whereas endless poetry is poetry.

This.

This feels like a.

Like a big dance to me.

His relationship.

Yeah.

To what is what is real and what is.

What is what is imagined.

The line for him is blurred because his reality is the films with which he's created now too.

Like.

Like that is more real to him.

And I mean, as an artist, I can.

I can relate to that in a lot of ways where sometimes, yeah, watching something that is larger than life or in kind of like made in a surrealist, surrealist way gets at me and I'm able to connect to it for whatever reason more than just, you know, the predictable way that life.

That life might go.

A lot of his films, they've been, you know, labeled inaccessible or.

Or too many things layered on it.

But there's.

There is the grounding force of his life and kind of like, all right, the.

The point.

The bullet points of it.

There are things that happen in this film that we can say, all right.

I don't think they quite.

They quite happened.

Oh, you mean vomiting coins?

Capitalism at its first.

Even an assassination on a world leader, I don't believe.

I'm not sure, but I don't think that necessarily.

That necessarily happened.

No.

I definitely see this movie as being strong on symbolism.

Right.

But when I think about the difference between reality versus fantasy, it's important to note that he's gone on and stated in the press tour for this and in interviews afterwards that this movie was an attempt for him to heal his own trauma.

As a matter of fact, it was like a mixture of filmmaking and therapy.

I forget what the name of it is.

I think I have it in my notes.

And I'll find it later.

That led to the creation of this movie because he wanted to rewrite his trauma through a surreal lens.

Right.

So as an example, which.

Sorry, that was.

That was taken from the book as well, that.

That he had written.

Right.

There is La Danza del R. That was a book that he wrote as well, and it had a title, a subtitle that I forgot.

But why don't we talk a little bit about the magical realism that happens in the movies through a concrete example.

So what?

When he was young, the young Jodorowsky has this, obviously a fake wig, this long blonde Apollo like hair that complicates his relationship with his mother.

Because of it, she believes it's the reincarnation of her dead father, who died traumatically, who had long blonde hair.

And when he's teased for his hair by his father to prove his masculinity, You're a man, you don't have this type of hair.

His.

His.

His father's cruelty is grotesque.

It's exaggerated.

They.

They key.

He has his hair cut violently as a symbolic act of violence.

Right.

And then in that sense, memory becomes a stage.

Right.

There's that mix.

I didn't see that theater presence as the stagehands moving things around.

It was, I think.

And that you see in Endless Poetry.

Endless Poetry has a much more, I think, expressionist, surrealist stage.

This, I think, is much more symbolic.

But the memory becomes a performance stage where the symbols carry emotional weight.

More emotional weight than realism.

I mean.

Do you agree?

Disagree.

Anything to add to that point?

Sure, yeah.

So this is where we're talking about what's real and what's not.

This is.

I don't know if this is a critique or not.

Like what I said at the top of the show is.

What I admire is when you're watching things on screen that are literally happening for real for the performers and the people.

Now, there's a scene where the mother cuts her hair and it looked as if she's actually cutting her hair.

Right.

To me, that holds some sort of power for the actress and the character because you're literally doing something that's changing you as a person.

The example you gave, it didn't hold as much water for me because it's a wig, and you see the wig actually come off.

It's violent and.

But then they pull the wig off.

Right, right.

And they could have done that.

But perhaps because he's a child, like, you know them, actually, I don't think.

He cared a lot about him being A child.

Okay.

We can talk about them chewing away the darkness a little later, but.

Yes, yes, perhaps.

Well, that.

That I'd love to lead into as well.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, they're.

They're.

Yeah.

He.

The mom, to help him with the.

Being scared of the dark, paints him in.

I don't know, is that shoe polish or is that.

Right.

To symbolize darkness.

And then she strips down nude and dances around with him.

And they.

Now, that scene can be viewed problematically right off the bat, but you have to be like, all right, this is a symbol for darkness.

And he's playing with that, I'd say a little bit.

It does not at all have the connotation of being blackface or being black body, if you will.

But.

Because it's this whole.

Whole being.

But there is that figure in their window that is the Negro.

They call him El Negro, the black.

That's what they call.

Right.

So that.

Is that problematic.

That's almost playing with context.

It's.

It's like, for me, it's the dark.

It's a child innocence, and it's a beautiful way of reframing it for him.

It gets him over a fear.

Oh, for me, the problematic thing was having a young boy have nude scenes with a grown woman while they're dancing around playing.

Right.

I don't think that there was overt sexuality in that.

I'm just saying removing the lens of the movie to how they filmed it could be problematic for me.

Well, yes, possibly.

Because, I mean, it's relatable.

As in, like.

Sure, I remember with my mother just running around the house naked and bathing.

When you're a young kid.

Yeah.

Caring, carefree about that.

Like, so that.

That happens.

But.

But because it isn't the actual family yet, whereas the other people actually are, you know, his.

His family and that sort of thing.

In any event.

Yeah.

When things are like.

There was a couple things in this movie that maybe there were some CGI additional things added rather than him being able to realistically do it.

Oh, the sergeant, the birds and the sardines.

Right.

Those were reproduced.

Whereas in previous movie, he's using real animals.

He's using stuff.

But then again, that's can't be done today because of just different rules they have with animal rights and that sort of thing.

There was one movie where I think there's like, an elephant funeral and they carry, like, the carcass of an actual elephant.

You know, like in the movie.

Yeah.

So that the.

The things that we're talking about, his poetic acts that he does.

Right.

I think we mentioned one where, like, I don't know if he does it in this movie, but there's several ones to help somebody overcome a trauma where they have.

He's talked about somebody, you know, feeling like they have a cancer or something inside.

And he's literally pulls some.

Not literally.

He pulls like, food or something out of them to look as if he's, know, shamanistically removing that in a surrealist act.

He's not actually doing it, but he's convinced that, you know, that person's actually doing it.

Man.

This.

Yeah.

So on a film, I guess this ties a little bit what we're.

What we're talking about.

Does it make it less of a film if.

Or does that become then documentary if you're actually doing the thing that you're filming as opposed to recreating the actual filming of it?

Now, we know there's several moments, so you can't deny they're painted, they're doing that, they're dancing and doing that, you know, like on screen.

Does it become less real?

You know, I mean, it's imagination at.

Play, but I mean, it's reality through a lens.

Right.

That's what the missing scene is, is for you.

You frame that.

Those shots are framed, that dance is framed.

Even the.

The dance comes from a part of him being a scared of the dark, but also him being teased for being Jewish, for being different.

And his mother is like, I'm going to go disrobe and I'm going to walk into this place and I'm going to teach you how not to be seen.

And that obfuscation of your inner light, what makes you, what makes you, you, leads to survival while the father is off on the other thing.

And I have a hot take for you.

Okay.

So this is supposed to be his autobiography.

Right.

But that's challenged by the fact that it seems to be the father story.

But since it's the father's story through his imagination and since his identity in this movie, as opposed to Endless Poetry where he rejects the father's identity and reaches for his own, his identity in this movie is defined by his father.

Then is this.

Even though it's the father's journey, because his identity is tied to it and it's his perspective, is this his autobiography?

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

You know, whether or not the scenes that they're together.

Yeah.

You know, that for what he remembers, they could have happened in a more similar fashion because they're actually in the same room.

But yeah, when.

When the dad is off, away from the whole family.

Yeah.

Who knows the exact details and Exactly.

It's his imagination of what it is.

Right.

It's what he imagines happened to his father.

The.

The fight with the Nazis.

So just.

Just so we don't lose people who haven't seen the movie.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's so many different images that are.

That are.

You know, we could go one by one and.

And talk about things.

But so let.

Let me step back.

So generally, this is his life in.

This is his life in Tocopillo, which is a Chilean mining town.

Portugal and mining town.

And basically it's the journey of his family and how he.

As a child and how his father, who's a communist, works with other communists and comes to the realization that he has to assassinate the president of Chile.

He goes on the journey to assassinate the president of Chile.

We'll go into detail on that later.

But it ends up that he couldn't.

His hands become crippled and frozen when he tries to shoot through some surrealist comedy, the president, who doesn't consider people at all.

He's like, oh, thank you for giving me this gun so I can shoot my horse who I'm grieving for, and here's some money.

And go.

And the wind blows out the money because he can't close it.

And he goes through this comedy.

Yes.

He goes through this journey where he is humbled by life and he's a communist who says God doesn't exist.

There are so many scenes where he traumatically beats the notion of there is no God in his son, where he is driven to the point where he.

He.

He's taken care of by a.

By a.

By a little woman.

He is taken care of by a poor carpenter.

He starts feeling.

Switches identities with a horse trainer.

He switches identity to the horse trainer, starts losing himself.

And then he finally gets to the point where he.

He cares about somebody else.

He's like, I love this other person.

Take all my goods and give him a good funeral as an example.

And then he's kidnapped and tortured by Nazis.

Right.

In some very graphic scenes.

And he finally finds his way home and he finds his family and apologizes, and he's lost.

And his wife.

Basically, I think this is the scene that encapsulates the movie.

She shows a picture of Stalin, a picture of the president and a picture of himself.

And she says, what you admired in Stalin, you also admired in this president that you hated.

And it's because it's you.

You have been acting with us in the guise of a tyrant.

When you don't realize that the person that's right in front of us now, the one who's humbled, is the real you and the one we love.

And when he comes to that realization, his hands miraculously get.

He's able to use them and they go off into that boat away from Tocopillo.

And you have the scene, the coda there that also begins endless poetry.

Right.

So that's kind of like a short version of the narrative of the story.

Right.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Anything I missed?

I guess there's a subplot between the people in Chile that are threaded kind of throughout.

You see them kind of coming in the mountain and there's.

Aside from the racism, there's the inner.

There's the interaction with the.

Do we call them a crippled.

A crippled man.

The miners.

There's crippled miners.

There's the.

There's the paraplegic and then the quadriplegic, which amputees.

Right?

Where.

Where you kind of see that.

And then he ends up becoming.

You know, he has really no empathy for.

For many folks himself.

Yeah, there's a contradiction there, right.

There's hypocrisy because he's a staunch communist who wants to do it for the people, while he treats the people that are unable to work for themselves that he should redistribute wealth to as less than him.

And there's a scene where, in order to prove his manhood after his son embarrasses him by acting like a child in front of a dead body and being scared, he goes to feed people with the plague on his own to show that he is tough enough.

And he comes back with the plague.

And there's this interesting scene where his wife prays and urinates on him to cleanse him of the plague that moves forward.

So there's this disconnect in terms of, you know, if you look at the.

The movie through father and son dynamics.

Right.

That's why.

That's what I mean, that it seems to be the father's journey, but it really is how it affects his identity.

And it goes back to Jodorowsky in that time period, because you have Jaime Jodorowsky, the father, who's played by Brontus, his oldest son, I believe his.

It represents tyranny, right?

In itself.

That's the layering that you're talking.

There is.

There's the political plot, but he.

Jodor Alejandro, is teaching his son by having him play his father of the hardships that he himself endured by having his dad, who's his son, to experience.

Maybe, maybe Alejandro's, like, not.

Maybe his son had like a.

More of a privileged upbringing or.

Or wasn't exposed to that type of environment he's putting his son through what he may have.

Or maybe it's a way, like, if I have been difficult with you, here's what I went through, right?

That could be one of those things.

But at the end, like the.

The.

The father figure, the.

The character represents tyranny, as I was saying, represents political seal.

And it.

He represents wounded masculinity, right?

He goes from this Stalinist authoritarian to this spiritually broken man searching for meaning.

You know, like I mentioned, he was tortured by the Nazis and has an eventual redemption with his family after failing to assassinate a president he has left crippled and humbled.

But what does it mean when a strong.

First of all, is your father strong?

Right, but what does it mean when a strong father fails?

Is there poetry in that collapse?

Right.

Is the strongest man the one who renounces his strength, the one who chooses not to act when they could.

Could I. I don't know, but I think he poses the question, right?

And so, I mean, yeah, who.

Who is.

How does he develop his.

His sense of self?

We.

We should also introduce that.

There's the theosophist as a character as well, which is a.

Which is another influence on him, which is, incidentally, one of other Jordanowski's sons playing him.

But theosophist is representing the unity of all religions.

And he kind of represents a counterpoint to pretty much how he's being raised.

And he seems to gravitate a little bit towards.

Towards that just naturally.

So, like, there is.

There is a little bit of that.

That.

That.

Oh, he sees a little bit of elsewh.

What is out there.

And there's a powerful scene where he gives him kind of religious symbols from three various religions and he says, melted into.

Into a single.

You know, they.

If.

Well, if they were melted down, it would just be one.

The same thing.

But doesn't the dad flush it down the toilet or.

I think he takes.

So when.

When.

What's.

What's the name of the character?

I forget, but like the shaman.

Theosophist.

Theosophist, he gives them, like, these gold trinkets and he goes to show his father and it's a ritual, right?

A ritual renunciation of religion.

He's like, no, there is no God.

Come here.

Kneel down in front of the toilet.

And he taught.

And every Time he taught three.

Three.

It's three pendants, right across a star.

And I forget the other one.

And he's like, there is no God.

There is no God.

There is no God.

Flush.

And I know that water was hitting that kid all in the face.

So.

It is what it is.

But there is a renunciation, There is an expiration, and I think a renunciation of.

Of.

Of what strength is, of what masculinity is, is.

Is sensitivity.

Strength, right?

Is kindness.

Strength.

When his son.

When young Jodorowsky is.

Alejandro, is being kind, he's calling him, you know, like these homophobic slurs, like, my.

My son is not this.

My son is not that.

Because it's just kindness, right?

He's just showing kindness.

And that is considered to be.

It's considered to be weakness.

But then you see, like, his immediate reaction at the very beginning when he meets God.

I keep forgetting his name.

The shaman character, him being called a homophobic slur has him running to the sea, grabbing a stone, saying in a violent act, tossing stones at the water and at fish, like, I'm not gay.

I'm not gay.

I'm not gay.

And then he's like, stop.

You're gonna.

Like.

The old person first comes to Jodorowsky and says, like, you know, your act is gonna cause ripple effects, basically.

And Jodorowsky's like, shut up, old man.

And then all of a sudden, you see all of the sardines fly out of the sea into the floor and all of these birds.

And he poses the question, I wept for the plight of the sardines, but I was joyful for the exuberance of the birds.

But then I was sad when the birds ran out of sardines.

So it's.

It's like some.

Somebody's joy will inherently be somebody's pain.

Yeah, he.

He uses anguish and joy as the two counterpoints.

Something that, you know, I've been exploring in my work, of course, with the idea of the seesaw and.

And that sort of thing of.

But this is an interesting way of kind of looking at.

Yeah, there is that.

The joy and the sorrow, but they're inter.

Kind of.

They're.

Yeah, they're.

They're wound up together.

That's taken.

For him, it's kind of like the yin and the yang, I'd say it's.

It's.

It's the light in the dark.

But they're.

They're still connected.

It's not two separate things.

Like, they both exist as two opposite ends of something, but they are part of the same whole.

Which.

Yeah, which.

Which he's hitting at in so many different ways.

Yeah.

And you had mentioned a couple things that made me, you know, hearken back to when we watched Endless Poetry, particularly like, I guess, the homophobia.

And it does add a little bit more nuance to some of those things.

You know, you see, the father has become even more hardened in Endless Poetry.

After his redemption, after his moment of clarity.

It's even worse afterwards.

Right, right.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, so, so I get, you know, you can be a little more empathetic for the dad having seen.

Seen.

Yeah, seen this one.

Right, right, right.

Before I have less empathy for the dad character because it seems like he learned nothing,.

But he.

He came to a point where.

Yeah.

I mean, he, he had so many, you see, he had so many opportunities with which to grow and he's just become.

Now he's still locked up, but he's just really cold in the second one.

You know, it's funny, when this movie ends, the father is aged, right.

You see white hair on his head, like more gray temples.

But when you see the beginning of Endless Poetry, he's back to being himself, even though it begins with the image of him older.

Right.

As opposed to what he looks like at the very end of Endless Poetry where he looks older.

So it's almost like he.

He skipped to the end of the piece he himself gave himself with his father in this movie to.

To close it off.

Maybe he didn't know he was going to make Endless Poetry afterwards, but I think it's.

Intentional.

But.

Yeah, I mean, there's a third of these planned too, which I.

Or talked about, which.

Oh, I would love.

I'd love for it to.

You better hurry up.

He's in George R.R.

Martin territory if he wants to get something done.

Yeah, well.

Well, that's.

What's the interesting thing of just his relationship to money and you know, kind of being so anti capitalist and, you know, to get some of these things.

He said he wanted to lose money on this film at Khan.

I remember.

He said he wanted to.

I remember.

But just the scope of his imagination is costly to be able to like getting back to the point of really recreating these things.

It takes some generous producers and, and team that are behind, you know, his, his kind of visions.

Yeah.

And who knows, you know, how.

How he's paying his sons to be in this movie giving, you know, really these heartfelt, demanding performances.

I don't know how much they could pay me to shock my testicles like they.

They do in the torture scene.

I know it's fake, but it looks.

Hey, no, no.

That.

This brings a good point.

I would.

For this man, I would be in any film.

That's maybe because he's not your dad.

There's.

There's that added layer of stuff between.

You know what I mean?

Like, it must be hard to be the child of a.

Of a.

Of a genius, you know what I mean?

Because it's.

They're so consumed with their work.

I don't know.

I think I'm putting my own.

My own baggage on it, but it's just like when you have a person and in my experience, for example, my grandmother was an opera singer, a university professor, an author and an activist.

Started a nonprofit for single mothers in Peru.

And she was an amazing grandmother.

I was shocked to find that as a mom, they had a lot of issues, and then later in life they addressed those issues.

Right.

So how much time could a Jodorowsky gives his children when he's working on these things that he's working on?

You know what I mean?

Maybe he does and he does it well, but I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's.

It's, you know, like you.

Yeah.

Would you.

You know, like, they'll do it because it is telling the family story and that sort of thing.

So they're fully invested, those brothers, in that.

But whether they have any creative say or control as to.

As to what happens, but who knows if, you know, like, because he's using them.

There is a part of me, though, that would like to know that aspect of what you're saying beneath it.

But I guess you are learning that, like.

Yeah.

What.

What type of father is he?

They at least want to work with.

They at least.

They at least want to work with him.

Hopefully a good one.

Right.

Like, again, I don't want to.

I just.

Because I have my own preconceptions.

I hope that's not what.

Where he's at.

And they've done.

They've had it.

They.

They've healed.

But I would imagine it's difficult because from what I've learned through you and my own research on Jodorowsky, and now that I'm watching more of his films, is he's consumed by his work.

He's definitely doing that.

And I also know I'm not a parent.

You're a dad.

I'm an uncle.

And the little ones take up a lot of care and time and effort and focus.

So maybe he can do.

And he's consumed by his Imagination.

And if he can.

Yeah, you know, he's a prolific tarot reader.

We've met a comic book artist, which I don't believe you've.

You've seen.

You've read any of his actual comics as well?

Which I have not.

It's on my list of things to do.

It's on my.

Scott, which explores a lot of his themes of kind of the yin and the yang and, you know, kind of light side, dark side of, of things.

So, I mean, I feel like you could, you could just pick out of a hat, you know, any of the profound images in this movie and have an hour discussion on, you know, I mean, we go, we went through, through a couple of them.

You know, we can go back to the, the, the, the golden shower of sorts.

We can.

You know, we mentioned the darkness that, that one.

But it's, it has the.

Like, I say this about his films all the time.

It's, you know, if you recommend one of his, you will either want to see everything he does or never trust a movie recommendation from me ever again, you know.

No, I enjoyed this.

I enjoyed this movie.

I enjoyed it more than Endless Poetry.

Not that I didn't enjoy Endless Poetry, but maybe because the Endless Poetry was a DVD and La Danza was an HD rental on, on Amazon.

We're not sponsored by Amazon.

It just, it looked beautiful, the cinematic.

Like you could tell that this, this movie, there was attention to detailing, care, and it seemed almost more performative.

Less performative?

I think Endless Poetry was more performative.

You saw like, the stagehands moving things around and it seemed much more symbolic.

I want to piggyback on what you had just kind of said.

You seem to have a preference for La Danza.

Yeah, La Danza to Endless Poetry.

And I think I would agree that it just, it becomes a little bit more surprising.

Like there's so many, so many moments of, of surprise that are happening, you know, through it.

The, the thematic, the heft of, of each event feels a little bit more earned.

And there's.

Yeah, there's just such powerful images and like I said, that are actually happening on screen as you're watching them, you know, Very, very much so.

I don't know the, the character of the mom too.

Well, let's, let's talk about the character of the mom and then let's, let's go back because I think her character hasn't.

I don't think her character changed that much.

So in, in this movie, the way that I saw her character was I saw her through the Lens of, like, spirituality, of divine.

Of healing.

Right, right.

So again, it's the same choice that we explored in the last movie.

She sings all of her dialogue in an operatic tone.

Right.

And I think that elevates her into like, maybe a divine presence, a half goddess, half.

Maybe guardian angel to him.

To Jodorowsky, Young Alejandro Jodorowsky.

She also, like, bathes her husband at like a Christ figure after her torture and humiliation.

Right.

She carried.

It's like she carried the weight of male pain.

Right.

Motherhood is a sacrifice which is not that dissimilar from what we saw in Endless Poetry.

I think the difference is there was much more sexuality to her in Endless Poetry, despite there being sex scene here, as she is also her mirror image in Alejandro's future lover as a poet in the Chilean, Santiago bohemian scene.

But that's how I.

Which adds some richness to Endless Poetry.

That character, because she's trying.

She.

She assumes a new identity for him and for the viewer by.

By having that.

That dual role.

Whereas in La Danza, she's really seeking out what is.

She's.

She feels like she doesn't exist without.

Yeah, like the male.

The male figure.

At first it was her.

Her father, and then she said, yes, she has no identity even without.

Without her husband.

I mean, there's a spiritual connection, but also, I guess a codependent, strong kind of.

Yeah, strong codependent bond forming.

Yeah.

And, yeah, I mean, by him acknowledging that, wow, the upbringing of love that.

That you did present.

You have become my muse for.

For poetry as.

As a adolescent into.

Into adulthood for Alejandro.

And yeah, there's some bold, Bold acting, you know, that is.

That is happening with her.

She.

She just.

She just has such a maternal vibe with.

With.

Within.

Within the whole film.

Even though she's walking around, you know, kind of topless throughout that whole thing.

Like, you know, like there was something comforting about it throughout the whole.

The whole.

The whole film.

That's just.

Maybe it's good casting or whatever.

And there's the singing aspect for me.

I don't know if we touched upon this in Endless Poetry, but how some people will sing to maintain distance from the pain.

You know, like, she's.

She's like a little disconnected from that pain a little bit where singing you associate with.

Oh, everything is.

You know,.

I see it a bit differently.

I see it as.

I see.

I see it a bit differently.

I see it as she wants to be in an opera.

She's participating in the drama and she's elevating the drama.

By singing.

Right.

So, for example, you have this scene where he goes, I'm horny, like I want.

And she goes, I don't want.

He's like, who is in charge here?

She says, you.

And then she seems to be enjoying this very rough, like.

Like mechanic sex scene that they're having that Alejandro walks in on, and he's at a point where he's so innocent, he has no idea what they're doing.

And that.

That's actually right before he shows him the medallions.

And he's like, there is no God.

There is no God.

There is no God.

Right.

But I. I definitely see her as.

As performing and then even in endless poetry, when she's with her family and she's part of that whole family drama, she's there being very performative in terms of what she does.

But I.

Again, I think that because the choice is to make it operatic, it.

It does make her a more mythical figure too.

Right, Right.

Like, a little bit.

Like she flies above them, but she is not one of them.

Like, she's almost untouched by what's going on, even though she's touched, because her trauma comes from long before, like, to the point when it's the father who cuts off Alejandro's hair.

She rejects him, saying, both of you have made me an orphan again.

And then she has to go heal to come back to be a nurturing force for Alejandro later in the film.

She.

She's definitely rejects him at the very beginning through that.

So I guess I'm asking, is she connected to her?

Like, does it affect her emotionally, or does the singing give that detachment from it?

I mean, I think maybe we're both right in that it heightens.

But there's that duality again, where, because it's song, it seems disconnected from reality, because people don't really do that in real life.

Yet is she.

Is she really more in touch with.

Right through song, through a more pure expression of her emotion, is she more in touch with what's going on?

I mean, again, I think it has to do with what I mentioned in terms of, you know, like, the.

The.

Like her carrying the weight of male pain.

Like she is this vessel that's holding everybody's traumas or projections on her.

She knows how to be invisible.

And at the very end, the truth, the thesis, the central thesis of the movie comes from her in that scene with.

With Stalin's picture and the president's picture and his picture, it's like, we love you for you.

We've always loved you for you.

Right.

And I know that you loved us, even though you wouldn't allow yourself to see it.

And you had to go through this journey to figure out that you are vulnerable, that you do love, and that makes you lovable because of who you are, not what you do and not what you achieve.

And as such, I think it's.

She, again, by singing, becomes a symbol of motherhood as a sacred sacrifice, you know.

Right.

So if we use that as an offshoot is to talk about the other kind of dual role that's played.

We have his other son who plays another role.

That's the main, you know, protagonist of him in.

In Endless.

But he also plays the other.

What do you call him?

The revolutionary or anarchist?

The other.

Communist.

Communist.

They're communist Communists, but borderline looking to, you know, also.

Yeah, it's personal revenge for him.

Personal revenge for him.

Right.

And so for you, he.

Yeah, he maybe.

Maybe not as well cast for that role since you saw him more playful in that.

And it's, you know, what I, what.

I told you is that I was taken out of it.

And I think it's me and my references because I kept seeing Andy Samberg in his face doing an SNL skit as he's going through these very emotional but very.

It's almost like his acting was from a different movie and more suited to something like Endless Poetry, which is much more expressionist.

But in that one, I just.

I, I.

There are some scenes that are impactful and I.

And I laugh.

But there's also.

But also he's making fun of it.

He mocks it.

He's.

He's doing surreal comedy there too.

So I don't know if that was, if that was intentional.

Did they have that intention from the beginning of him kind of playing both of those?

Because they Then I.

That there's a role similar to that in Endless Poetry that is somebody else playing it, I think.

Right.

No, I mean, maybe at one of these type of.

Type of meetings.

Yeah.

So, yeah, maybe for me.

I mean, it's a fun little Easter egg to see that he's also in it at, at that.

At that point.

But then that scene is quite interesting with.

When the first assassination attempt and.

Yeah.

Steps in front.

Well, I think it showed his shrewdness.

Right.

Because he saw the gun wasn't working and he didn't want to lose his opportunity to kill the president, so he stepped in, sacrificing the other guy.

The other guy, when the gun finally works, kills himself, and then he's put into the service of the President who doesn't.

Can't even tell him apart from the person who.

He basically says, the only thing I want in return is to take care of your horse, Bucephalus, which is the name of Alexander the Great's war horse.

And then when he goes, there's already somebody who's taking care of the horse, and that person dies, and he's like, just bury me.

And don't even tell the President, because he's not even gonna notice.

Like, okay.

Which is a great commentary on, like, what the people mean to leaders, right?

Or certain leaders.

Certain people in positions of power.

And it's definitely.

There's comedic elements, but there's also very dramatic and sad elements and emotional elements, as.

Because it is in the service of the.

Of the person that he wants to kill.

And I think this is where it rings true at the end.

Like, he sees quite a.

Qualities that he admired in his great leader, Stalin, in the president and while taking care of the horses, which is why, like, oh, no, I have to.

Why?

Don't trick me.

I got to do what I got to do.

And he poisons the horse in order to try to get the president in a position to kill him.

And when he's about to shoot him, he just can't, because if he does that, he's killing himself.

He puts himself in the guise of a tyrant, criticizing other tyrants because he can't be who he is.

And that disconnection freezes him up, right?

Literally freezes him up.

I think that's where Jarrowski is just being straight up literal that entire sequence.

And, well, he rejects money so many times I.

That I was curious to know if the family.

That was a great setup for a joke, though, right?

He rejects money, rejects money, rejects money.

And then finally the guy puts money.

He's like, at this time, you're taking money and leaves.

And then he's like, just leave because I don't want to see you.

And then the wind comes and blows all the money.

I thought it was going to burn.

Burn up too, but, yeah, it just gets caught.

Caught in the wind.

But is that.

I was.

What I'm.

What I'm asking is, is that more Alejandro's relationship to money, or was that his father's as well?

Like.

Like, did their family struggle early on?

You know, I thought in the second movie, remember, he actually takes from them.

Like, he did actually have.

I don't think he struggled.

I don't think he struggled because I think, again, as I mentioned, this might be the father's journey, but because his identity is tied to his father and hits his imagining of it, right?

His redemption of it.

The redemption of the father comes through Alejandro through his wishful wish fulfillment of the redemption, as we later find out in Endless poetry, right?

But when he is being taken care of by a carpenter and the person takes him to church and he just dies from praising God, and they're collecting money, and it was not enough to give him his own burial.

It was enough to give him just like a community burial.

He's like, reach in my pocket and the guy pulls out a wad of cash, huge wad of cash.

That's not the money that the president gave.

That's the money that he had.

He was a wealthy store owner in Tocopillo.

Right.

So I think that that symbol.

Because it's an autobiographical film of Alejandro, again, through the perspective of him and how his identity is tied to his father.

And I think that is Alejandro's relationship with money.

Yes, that's.

That's how I viewed it as.

Well.

All right.

I guess I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of the.

The racism aspect of it, too.

We talked about kind of blackface, too, and then how the anti.

Kind of Jew sentiment that is threaded throughout the racism that he encountered.

And I'm curious, you know, to hear from your perspective, too, if you had any maybe.

Have you ever experienced that as.

As.

As a Peruvian.

As a Hispanic.

Yeah, just as a.

As a Hispanic Peruvian as well.

And I could speak on behalf of, you know, Judaism to a degree, but in this film, what's interesting is that someone who is notoriously kind of made fun of and mocked is the one to first kind of also mock his dad.

Like, it is the.

It is The.

The crippled man who.

Who.

Who.

His only way to fight back, too, is, you know, calling, oh, you're a Jew, you're a Jew.

And there's a disconnect between them.

He's not violent with him.

They're kind of having a war with words, whereas it gets violent.

The.

Yeah, they.

I. Yeah, well, they.

When he goes to see them, I.

But I was curious.

But it is still the dad that throws the first punch.

And then they're.

They're defending themselves as best they can, but they are seen kind of playing music and kind of being these, you know, peaceful.

Not really.

I don't think they're the aggressors in that situation.

That.

That, to me, was.

Was.

Was interesting.

So it's interesting, right?

So I think there.

There is racism.

I do think there's more.

There's a lot of classism, too.

There's a lot of prejudice against the poor.

I think the miner who felt disgusting, he feels disgusting as his own person as they go around.

That's when Alejandro's like, oh, I'll scratch your back.

You're not disgusting.

He's like, I lost my hands in the mines.

He lost his way to live.

It's interesting because the veins are cut off and his access to the veins of copper are cut off from his inability to.

His inability to mine.

And it's the father who says, like, get off, like, you disgusting person.

And he chases him off, and then the guy fights back with violence.

And it's this thing where I think it just shows a cycle of violence.

It doesn't matter where you are.

If your masculinity is threatened, you will fight back with violence, and it breeds more violence.

So when he goes back to the store, all of the crippled minors, all of the amputees and paraplegic and quadriplegic minors are there, and they're gonna attack him.

And the dad looks at him and he's like.

He's like.

And then just.

Just kicks him straight in the chest, which was.

Which is like.

Like one of those horrible memes you see on Instagram right now, right?

And it's just.

It's this, again, this dance of violence that just perpetuates over and over until somebody is strong enough and man enough to break the cycle, right?

And I'm saying this man, not in general, but from the perspective of toxic masculinity, who is a man, what does what.

What is a man?

How is it defined?

What makes you strong?

Right?

And Alejandro seems from the git had just a.

Whether it's a soft spot or wanting to amplify the voices of.

Of those that get over overlooked sometimes and those that.

That, yeah, like, he's used amputees and circus performers and a lot of people from a community with which to empower to be part of his films.

The other character who becomes kind of a town crier is the dwarf.

Who has some of the best poetic moments.

And he's Most costume changes, and he serves kind of as like kind of the stagehands in endless poetry.

He's kind of like, all right, kind of like a little marker between scenes, depending on what topic we're kind of like talking at, you know, I think it was money at first.

Religion.

I think it's how he sees religion, right?

Because he ends up being playing the role of a jester, right?

Like the jester, traditionally in the court, in the king's court, the jester was there not necessarily as a fool, but to make fun of people, to, to bring, to call out things.

Right.

To, to bring satire.

And at the very end, he's Jesus.

Right.

Like, at the very, at the very end.

Right.

So is, what does he, what does that say about religion in this world?

I mean, maybe his view is not that far from his dad, you know.

Yeah.

Or, or the, the fact, like, because you always, the, the view of God too is, you know, white beard, all powerful being.

But yeah, it, being a dwarf is the best poetic thing I could.

Subversion.

Yeah, it's a subversion of these tropes that are, that are there.

Right, Right.

So it looks like it's almost time to, to pick up the boy, but, but I, I, there's still more to talk.

I want to hear your poem.

I, I kind of started a poem too, that I'll read the, the, the beginnings of.

I'm excited to return.

Return to it.

You want to go first or you want me to?

Since yours is a little more comprehensive, I believe.

Sure.

I just, again, I just very quickly want to, you know, just talk about, Just give me one minute.

I want to go through the thematic continuities.

I think both movies are autobiographical.

Rites of passage, mythic rites of passage.

Right.

Using blending memory, magical realism, psychology, psychological symbolism.

They're all framed as the initiation of the deeper truth.

I think both movies do that.

Family is an emotional battleground and catalyst for things like the strange relationship between father.

Jaime is central in both films.

His mother, again, we talked about her.

And then the search of identity through art.

And again, magical realism and poetic visual language.

But where I think they're different is in their tone.

And I think you touched upon that, Scott.

I think La Danza is more reflective, more spiritual, more philosophical, while Endless Poetry is rebellious and sensual and exuberant.

Right.

All these, there's red in both, there's beautiful scenes in both, but it's definitely, I think, more vibrant in Endless Poetry as a difference.

And in La Danza, the father son dynamic is central to the conflict.

The father is traumatized, the father is rigid, and he's shaping Alejandro's early life.

But in Endless Poetry, Alejandro breaks free from that and defines himself outside his father's influence.

That doesn't happen in this movie.

The mother's role, I think, is pretty similar.

And I'll end with this because I think there's more like romantic themes.

Like, Ladanza is not really that romantic.

Endless Poetry is very romantic.

The visual style is in.

La Danza is earthy and symbol, rich and contemplative.

And in Endless Poetry, it's colorful, surreal, theatrical.

Right.

A lot of energy.

But.

But I think the way that they're most different, and this leads into my poem, is that the La Danza, endless poetry is about a soul expanding and growing and acting.

But I think La Danza is about the formation of the soul.

I think La Danza is about like a seed in the ground, blossoming.

Right.

And that is one of the things that influenced this poem that I'll read for you right now, inspired by this movie, and it's called Bucephalus.

And for those who don't know, Bucephalus is the war horse of Alexander the Great.

And he symbolizes power and strength.

Right.

Also the name of the horse in the movie.

So that's where I got the title from.

The formation of the soul is a seed in the earth forged in pressure, blooming through trauma.

Divine mother, singer of arias Violence takes the limbs from a miner in an act of endless cruelty.

The acrid scent of sulfur is the last gravestone where innocence mourns at midday by the deathbed of an absent father or the bedside of a son who accepts affection in the slap of abuse's caress.

We live in a world of dogs dressed up as lions.

One suffering is another's pleasure.

Homophobic chauvinism, masked insecurity, an aversion to kindness, to the laughter of children.

Those who piss have prayers as well.

Yes, with some fun little Easter eggs.

To some of the more poignant images in the film, the one that we didn't touch about in our discussion was kind of like the.

Or I got that last laugh.

Well, no, no, no, the tickle scene too, when the repression of laughter where.

Yeah.

Like, to harden somebody to.

To remove them from the stifle that like.

Like they used to have this improv game called, you know, Make Me Laugh, whatever.

And like.

Like the goal was, like, not to laugh.

Like, can somebody do something to not laugh?

But like, you almost.

You want to be able to give in to.

To really enjoy.

And sometimes you have to like, laugh a little, to like, fake laugh almost a little bit to get that real laugh actually out to.

To.

To release.

But stifling, like a laugh.

That bubbling is.

Oh, that's cruelty to me.

It's called.

It's self control.

But the concept is that repression is strength when you go into something like that.

Right.

It's a way to see it anyway.

And that's why I try to live my life.

Like, if I find something funny, I laugh.

If I find something sad, I cry.

If I find something adorable, I love it.

I just.

I just have to be.

I mean, there's obviously critical thinking and discretion, but I have to be me.

I have to be me.

Yeah.

I mean, it's arguable.

That's where disease can.

Can root a little bit of that.

That repression of even of.

Of some joy or some.

Yeah.

With stress and holding stuff in.

The other thing I want to just comment on your poem too, is, you know, I mean, we.

We just.

The.

The presence of animals within his work, all of his films.

Sometimes the violence attached to animals, but, you know, the cycle of.

Of animals, the.

The life and death of.

Of animals.

And I guess, you know, it ties.

Ties into my poem a little bit and something that I wanted to explore of, like, you know, my.

My idea was, all right, who.

Who is.

Who are the.

Who is ruling this world?

Who is in charge of all this?

And my.

My poem's called Tony Danza de la Reali, Dad.

Okay, who's the boss?

Don Achilles or Jaime?

Does pops wear the pants in the family?

Or does mom rule the song and dance without wearing any?

Do the cripples rule?

The dwarf turning water into wine?

Or is it Alejandro pulling the strings the whole time?

Who's the boss?

The priest, Rabbi Iman or the theosophist all inclusive grin who's the boss?

A pocket full of gold coins or a heart filled to the brim no matter who's the boss these images all mean something to him.

Bending what?

Really?

Or surfing surrealist the director is the boss of me.

Here we go.

I. I can't help but think of, like.

Hold me closer.

Tony Danza Tony Danza, baby.

Yep.

That's great, man.

I. I dug it.

I.

You got to send me the text.

I want to sit with it for a bit.

Yeah, sure.

No, I mean, it's.

It's.

It's.

It's a kernel of just the.

The idea of being who's the boss of who.

It's fun.

You were having fun with it, I could tell.

Having fun.

But I think that can be applied to a lot of the aspects of it.

And yes, it is him making the decision.

Some of the things that we talked about, of imagination and reality, but it is his vision when all said and done.

But if he was influen.

Yeah, but if he was influenced by his father, where he likes it or not, is he really.

Is he really pulling the strings?

Right?

Like, that, that.

That's.

That's an interesting question to go into.

I love it.

And yeah, there's.

There's literal puppeting happening throughout the movie, you know, and stuff like that.

And that's a good lead in, if you get a chance, you know, other Jodorowsky movies to see Santa Sangre, I keep recommending.

I'd love to.

To Sit down and Topo.

El Topo, which there's a lot of similarities to El Topo.

The sun to Simmer becomes more of a motherly journey, whereas this one becoming the fatherly.

A closing question I would ask for you two is what would you like to see in the trilogy?

What relationship explored?

Maybe in the third part we can think about where it might go chronologically, but what would be a cool avenue that could be explored?

I would love to see Jorafsky in Paris, but as a parent now, like him in the place he wanted to get to, being the man he wanted to be, living the life he wanted to lead with the freedom that he has, but being.

Being tethered to these lives he brought in because he's a creator and now he created life and he has no control over.

I mean, he has influence, but no control over where they're going to go.

And he's somebody who strongly curates his work.

So I would like to see him as a more evolved self dealing with things that might trigger baser.

Baser instincts.

So I think that would be cool.

Plus, I just like movies set in Paris.

Yeah, no, I agree to that because the films that he's made would be.

Would be chronologically, what would happen after Endless Poetry.

It would be the Fondue Elise.

It would be El Topo, Holy Mountain.

So we've seen that.

We've seen that kind of within the films that he's made to.

To look into him as a father and even.

Even as a grandfather.

I think I. I would love.

We'd love to see.

So is the kid his grandson?

Is the kid his grandson?

The one who plays the.

The Sid is the kid is not really.

I mean, different.

Different last names, but I thought it.

Was maybe his dog, because I know he has three sons and a daughter.

I thought it might be the daughter's kid, but I wasn't sure.

I got.

Yeah, not.

Not that I.

Any research that I've done, I don't think that kid is actually tied, but.

But I'm sure.

I'm not sure.

But maybe if his sons do have some to.

To.

To be able to see, that would be great.

Unless he's protecting them from any type of life in, in in arts, or not protecting them.

But yeah, they'll find their way.

Well, awesome.

All right, Scott, we graded your earpiece.

We did it again.

Another perfect episode.

Yes, perfect in its imperfections.

Not too many talking over each other's and interruptions, but increased sound amplification.

Looking forward to the next.

Yeah.

Have a reflective day yourself and peaceful day and look forward to talking to you soon.

We're out.

Real Poets is produced in hosted by Rencho del Castillo and Scott Rabin.

Original music composed by Gabby Weitzenfeld.

Episode art and visuals by the Real Poets team.

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