Magical Realism from Latin America. The Chilean genius Jodorowsky and his book "The Dance of Reality"

The Latin American magic starts from the first page. The name of the director is a wordplay, he actually is Alejandro "The Golden Eye". The beginning of life is explained by the passion for the tarot's divine cards and the fatal attraction to a library built by Masons. At this point, it becomes clear that you won’t understand much, but that the enjoyment will be enormous. You take Jorge Luis Borges , Marquez and Eco as satellites ... and you descend into the semi-thoughts of the Chilean dreamer. "The Dance of Reality. A Psychomagical Autobiography"is the joking and, at the same time, a serious idea that the author has for his own life. The greatest movie that has not been realized in the history of cinema. The Chilean director, Jodorowsky, is best known for his giant design of Frank Herbert's Dune Screening. Like Kubrick's unrealized "Napoleon," this version of the fantastic movie is becoming a legend because of its magnitude. The film was supposed to include Salvador Dali in the role of the Padisha-emperor Shadam IV and Pink Floyd music. The costumes and the starting frame are spectacularly conceived. The David Lynch version later is much more modest. Jodorowsky's remains one of the wise men's dreams in his ivory tower.

The year of the first edition is 2001, six years after Pyichomagic, which examines psychological changes as a result of poetic action. "The Dance of Reality” also abounds in esotericism, but in it spiritual quests and revelations are intertwined with biographical scenes, making the book more interesting for cinemas who are excited by the inspiration behind masterpieces such as The Mother and the Holy Mountain. In "The Dance of Reality," Jodorowsky misses important moments of his life and doesn’t pay close attention to his films, for which he even said each of them would take a single book. Instead, the director focuses on important (as he thinks) events of his childhood. Like the moment when he was throwing pebbles on the sea, and from there thousands of fishes popped out, which then the seagulls and homeless people ate. This combination of cruelty and necessity learned him of humanity, which became the main driving force behind every work. Jodorowsky writes with sentiment towards the past, with strong images that often separate from reality to paint pictures. Even in the autobiographical form the spirit of the poet finds no limit. It is impressive how seriously Jodorowsky is taking the magic. Maybe because it really works in his world. People find a meaning that science can’t offer them. That's why madness can be normalized according to its own rules. Jodorowsky 's madness is revealed in his films, where he acquires a form and can be analyzed and treated. As long as one reads "The Dance of Reality," he invariably asks whether this is not the ancient heart of storytelling. The shamans and sorcerers who have treated people with their words are the first professional narrators. The only measure of who is better was the depth of the well from which he drew images. Jodorowsky's one does not dry up.

In the "The Dance of Reality," the old magician confronts us with the heroism of his overcome childhood fears and his fanciful flights to Paris. His book is bold and enchanting. He is one of the last living classics of the twentieth century - neither a hippie nor a romantic, but a man of the Southern Hemisphere, where the inhabitants of the antipodes not only live but dreamed down. For a person coming from there, there is nothing unusual about acquainting us with a trivial fact of our lives, as well as with original notes on exotic spiritual practices and supposed experiences with beings from the beyond world (if this other world is only one in which Jodorowsky doubts). The charming shaman of cinema is lying to us, but he is also entangled in his nets - and he succeeds in being both serious and to laughing at the same time. This is not a mockery, but a pure joy of the fact of existence, of games of mind, of charlatanism, even of the very possibility of being alive to suffer. Jodorowsky is both wise, stupid and carefree, and Christ and Maitreya are old comrades for him.

I don't know if his films should be watched first. If you have not been to the Sacred Mountain, the Holy Blood and the documentary Dune of Jodorowsky, you may be delighted if you first read the book - prepare for something huge and then watch them. You will get a giant gift, but not the one you expected. Jodorowsky constantly surprises himself, he is an eternal child. You should be a very sad person to dislike "The Dance of Reality” ... but if you are a very sad person, then you probably need this very lively dance. I figured out to whom I find the amazing Alejandro: Tom Skeaton of The Tree of All Saints. Do you think of Bradbury's madly and frightening book? Do you also remember the bold boy Bill from Stephen King's "It"? Jodorowsky is like them. If you are a woman, you will feel that there is a little devil behind all the crazies and you will want to kiss him on your forehead. If you are a man, you would invite him to a duel, because that man allows himself to be more daring than you. But there is no way you don’t like him. Whether you watched his movies or believe in the esoteric experiences described from the pages, "The Dance of Reality" is a testimony to the power of imagination, a valuable document of a passing era of drug experimentation, a quest for another reality we found where we were not looking for. Alejandro Jodorowsky's writing is borrowed from the magical realism of South America, from superstition, spells, and unremitting imagination. This is the biography of a free spirit.

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