Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal cinematic retelling of his own childhood, The Dance of Reality, is an unbearably beautiful film. The surrealism may get tiresome at times, but it's a cinematic poem and a masterful one at that. Filled with poetry, metaphor, heart and emotion, this one is a devastating, gobsmacking punch in the face. This is one extremely weird and abstract movie, yet it somehow manages to be unbelievably human. It works because it is telling a good, interesting story and it's filled with raw, enormously powerful acting. The imagery and visual metaphors may be tiresome to some, but mostly they work well and seem to actually mean something, rather than just being pretentious. At over 2 hours it's a pretty exhausting film. It's an emotional juggernaut and the drama is extremely hard-hitting. Alejandro Jodorowsky himself appears in the film occasionally in a very interesting way. This is just such a unique and fascinating movie and while it won't be to everyone's tastes, those who like it will most likely still not know what it means and what exactly the film is about. Yet that is the key to the film's quality. It is a subjective, abstract, metaphorical work of art which is utterly overwhelming, but in the best possible way.
9/10
9/10