I am curious to know if people thought the massive amount of cryptic mis-en-scene and *beep* of images actually symbolized something or was overall empty.
Personally, I thought this was a masterpiece, with the ending being one of my favourites of all time. Even if you thought it was pretentious and hollow, would originality give it a decent score from you alone?
What are your takes on this film?
"THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!"
It's a giveaway at the very end
The point is there is no point, none of the symbolism means anything, and it was meant to be thrown at you hard enough to focus your eyes away from the absurdity. The actors are actors, the film is a film, and everything you have seen to this point was illusory and intended to convince the viewer there is meaning in meaningless
I didn't see the ending as a statement that everything is meaningless, I saw it as stating that the only thing enlightenment brings you is a connection with reality (hence making us realize we are only watching a film). None of the characters actually transcended the mortal realm or transformed themselves as they expected; the only way in which they changed is by dropping every illusion, pretense, and expectation they had. The way in which they escaped death was not by becoming immune to it, but by having everything taken away from them already, so that when death comes, there is nothing that it can rob them of.
As for the symbolism meaning nothing, I thought the symbolism was pretty obvious throughout most of the film. Each of the characters represented a different kind of attachment or illusion, and it was only after they were stripped of it that they could attain enlightenment.
I think the episode "Introduction to film" of Community makes fun of the Jodorowski style or the lack of it.
I find most of the Jodorowski films pretensions, overwhelming and complete senseless, it may be a good religion based on acid; but as films are not good at all.
Santa sangre (Holy blood) was the best film he made, keeping down the symbolic *beep* and finally making a script¡¡; he finally understood that there's no need of a mega super compile of information and random scenes to explain the WHOLE of the WHOLE, you can try to explain a personal view of the WHOLE of the WHOLE with a simple well done story.