The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry)

Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry) | Movie review
6 January 2017
Catherine Sedgwick
Avatar
Catherine Sedgwick
6 January 2017

Movie and show review

Catherine Sedgwick

Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry)

★★★★★

Release date

6th January 2017

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

Possibly Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s best work, his autobiographical Endless Poetry is an inspired celebration of art and artists. Shot in his boyhood town of Santiago, the sound of seagulls and surreal visuals introduce the piece, which is immediately alive with prolifically symbolic and exuberant collages of images. With a gorgeous set, black and white two-dimensional forms combine with colourful cinematography. Unusual circus-like characters abound, including masked women with pendulous bare breasts, a tiny Hitler and policemen on stilts. Jodorowsky himself appears, waxing nostalgic about the past, illustrated sardonically by a scene of a man murdered and gutted in the street. Felliniesque with echoes of Buñuel, the film’s irony and interactions also contain hints of Woody Allen. An influence of Brechtian theatrical alienation is suggested in elements such as faceless cloaked figures moving the set and objects within scenes.  

Jodorowsky as a boy (Jeremias Herskovits) concludes he wishes to be a poet but his autocratic father (the director’s son Brontis Jodorowsky) forbids it, declaring art is for homosexuals. His mother (Pamela Flores) speaks in operatic song, implying disconnection from reality. The young Alejandro reacts to his father’s oppression by at first pretending he wants to become a doctor, then rebelling. Escaping to an artists’ commune, he encounters various Alice in Wonderland-type figures who live their art, from a ballet dancer always in a tutu on her toes to a painter who ecstatically covers himself with paint.

In a cafe with robotically slow elderly waiters and dozing patrons, 20-ish Alejandro (son Adan Jodorowsky) meets and loses his virginity to a wild, irreverent, quite violent lady poet, Stella Diaz (Pamela Flores) – a rite of passage ending when she subjects him to near rape by a gang of thugs. Upon deciding to leave for Paris to “Save Surrealism”, Alejandro encounters a masked crowd with swastikas following a dictator. Trying desperately to tell them they are idiots, he is ignored.

In dialogue with himself, Jodorowsky appears, telling his younger incarnation: “You’re not guilty for living the way you do. You’d be guilty if you lived as others want you to live.” When Alejandro asks him “What is the meaning of life?”, he responds: “Life has no meaning. You have to live it. Live!”

Brilliantly directed and acted, Endless Poetry is a dreamlike memoir. An exultation of existing purely for art, it is a feast of symbolic  imagery; a remarkably rich, evocative, highly engaging and enjoyable composition.

★★★★★

Catherine Sedgwick

Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry) is released nationwide on 6th January 2017.

Watch the trailer for Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry) here:

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Related Itemsreview

More in Movie reviews

Fadia’s Tree

Marissa Khaos
Read More

What Josiah Saw

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Luck

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

Maisie

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Bullet Train

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Thirteen Lives

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Hit the Road

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

Fire of Love

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Death of a Ladies’ Man

★★★★★
Mae Trumata
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Catherine Sedgwick

Poesia Sin Fin (Endless Poetry)

★★★★★

Release date

6th January 2017

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Camden Fringe 2022: Rome 3000 (Julius Caesar) at Canal Cafe Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Midsummer Mechanicals at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Luck
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • “The show makes you question, think about things and look into yourself. It speaks to you”: Tom Sturridge and Vivienne Acheampong on The Sandman
    Cinema & Tv
  • “Theatre is totally unique… there’s simply nothing else quite like it”: An interview with Sir Howard Panter as the new cast of Jersey Boys opens at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Jersey Boys bring on a new cast at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • All of Us at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Sandman
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • Midsummer Mechanicals at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Jersey Boys bring on a new cast at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Luck
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • South Facing Festival: Jungle bring their signature neo-funk to Saturday night
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • “Everything that’s happened to me has brought me here”: David Leitch on Bullet Train and working with Brad Pitt
    Cinema & Tv
  • The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Zero Days | Movie review
Ed Sheeran releases two new songs: Castle on the Hill and Shape of You