I have seen Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain back in high school and remember really enjoying it, along with his other film, El Topo. I recently saw a the IFC center where it still plays as a midnight movie.

The story is full of surreal and absurd imagery that tells a loose story of a christ like figure wandering around a land that resembles a hellish landscape that resembles the American southwest and Mexico. The figure meets an alchemist who takes him on as an apprentice and introduces him to seven other students who represent the seven planets of the solar system. Vignettes provide the backgrounds of each student, with all of them being despicable in their own ways, consisting of: a politician, an arms dealer, a to manufacturer, an architect, an art dealer, a police chief, and a cosmetics maker. The group then burns their money and their own images and goes on  a journey to find enlightenment.

Almost every shot of the film is beautiful and has imagery that relates to many religions, spirituality, and esoteric beliefs, as well as just plain surreal and often comically absurd. The first part of the film, which follows the Christlike figure, has a lot of references to the history and politics of Mexico. The commodification of Christianity, poverty, and features a scene of a reenactment of the Spanish conquest using lizards dressed as the indigenous people and toads dressed as conquistadors. The later part of the movie also has scenes which bring about the ideas of the exploitation of workers in factories, the cult-like fraternity of the police force and its suppression of protestors, as well as the desire for beauty through cosmetic enhancements.

Something that struck out to me that I didn’t think about when I first saw it was the use of animals in this film, especially their carcasses. The scene with the reenactment of the Spanish conquest features exploding pyramids where you can see the toads flying in the air. There are also shots of dead chickens being strapped to trees, skinned and crucified sheep. I don’t think I agree with the death of animals for the sake of art, especially in the amounts that the film shows. The part that bothered me the most was a dog fight that, if it was faked, would be very convincing. I understand the concept behind it but I don’t think any work of art is worth the direct suffering of animals to make.

The two pieces that I found the most interesting MoMA’s New Order: Art and Technology in the Digital Age exhibit was Mark Leckey’s Made in ‘Eaven and Harun Farocki’s, Eye Machine I. The first features a view that revolves around the reflective sides of a Jeff Koons Bunny. The camera isn’t seen in the reflection because the video is a digital rendering that has been transferred to 16mm film. What struck me initially was the odd feeling of seeing a digital image on 16mm film, the smooth and unnatural surface of the sculpture and walls juxtaposed with the film grain. Leckey doesn’t own the Jeff Koons piece but he inserts it into his studio and then transfers it to a physical medium. The piece made me think of the way in which the current age of digital media and the internet has seen a blurring of reality and fabrication. The digital age is a time in which the authenticity of information posted online is subject to question, and ideas sprouted on the internet can manifest themselves into real life actions. In the way that reality becomes augmented, our senses are too.

I found Harun Farocki’s  Eye Machine I interesting in the way it demonstrated the precision in video technology developed for automation. The video features images of digital displays that automated machines use to perform their tasks, juxtaposed with images of video technology developed for the military. The video demonstrates the relationship between domestic and military tech, with the latter outfitting the former. The military has always been the progenitor of domestic technology but something about the fact that the piece focuses on video technology gave me an eerie feeling. The piece shows the sense that we all use in a cold and calculating manner, devoid of life. An aspect of human experience developed for analysis, data processing and precision that no person would be capable of.

I went to go see the films Blue God part 1 and 2 by Carl1 at Spectacle theater in Williamsburg. What first struck me was how little information there was about the film besides the trailer on the theater’s website.

The first film starts out with two school girls hanging out on a roof and talking with each other. There is atmospheric music but the dialogue is shown through text on monochrome frames like old silent movies, making it hard to know which character is talking. The lack of audible dialogue is a feature of both films, besides a scene in the second part. The two school girls talk about being tired of everyday life, finding it mundane and repetitive. They decide to run away and scenes of them walking through streets at nighttime follow until they eventually reach a beach where the first part ends on a long shot of the sky as it transitions from day to dusk.

The Second part is more abstract as it follows the school girls as they perform a ritual to summon the “Blue God” in a series of scenes. One scene features an older woman who cryptically speaks english set in a classroom where one of the school girls cuts the head off a chicken, the camera paying attention to the dripping blood. The second part of the film depicts the two school girls as they get infatuated with the indifferent and male, Blue God. There are many shots of the schools girls moving in unison. One of the school girls eventually performs a sex act with the Blue God, prompting the other girl to run to a cliff’s edge, the camera work and editing implying suicide.

After seeing the movie I was left confused about the meaning of the second part. The first was seemingly about the naivete of adolescence as the two girls seek to escape a modern world, that is in their opinion, too predictable and suffocating. After talking to my friend who I went to see the movie with the second part came to make more sense to me as he saw the films as an allegory for sexual maturity and growing up. The two girls act as representations of one person, the one who eventually commits suicide being the other’s innocence. This is apparent with the many shots of both girls moving in unison, essentially unifying them as representations of one person. The focus on the blood and the school room setting of the second part makes one think of the moment of having one’s first period. The death of innocence follows the girl’s first sexual experience, which essentially overshadows the naive and childish want for escapism that is presented in the first part.

After coming to this conclusion I came to appreciate the film a lot more, even though there is a lot of imagery and apparent symbolism that I didn’t pick up on. I was struck by the beautiful cinematography of the films; the first part features many tight shots of building walls that match the color of their surroundings and create interesting geometrical patterns in the layout of stones and tiles. The music used in the film is very atmospheric which made the whole project feel more like an art piece than a film. There are moments that dragged and felt like the creator was making them that way in order to have the film be more ‘artsty.’ Overall I enjoyed the film, I was really interested in the concept of making puberty into a surreal an metaphysical journey. As a moment that changes a person both physically and emotionally, puberty is in a way an event that feels jarring, awkward, and transformative.