Alejandro Jodorowsky in México

Angélica García

DVD (Creators and Personalities Collection, in Digital Library 2)

Documentary video that forms part of an ample documentary investigation into the stage work of Alejandro Jodorowsky in Mexico, from his arrival in 1959 with Marcel Marceau until the start of the 1970s, when he abandoned the country after multiple censures and closures that his original and transgressive works suffered. The narrative axis is an interview that, in 2005, Alejandro conceded to Angélica García – responsible for the project, such as the script and production of this video – with testimonies that evoke his theatrical work – from his first montages of French authors of the Theater of the Absurd, moving to the “ephemeral panic” (his most radical and irreverent proposal) until the minimalism of Zaratustra and The Game That We All Play, written and directed in improvisation with texts on philosophy, psychology and Oriental wisdom (his last and successful montages in the country). It also refers to his exploits in cinema: Fando and Liz (1967), The Mole (1969) and The Sacred Mountain (1972), with images – some of them unedited – of videos, news reports and personal and institutional archives. The interpolated testimonies of Juan José Gurrola, María Luisa “La China” Mendoza and Héctor Ortega, contextualize and evoke this icon of the national counterculture of the 60s and 70s, an age in Mexico that was rich in contradictions and also in artistic proposals, like that of the young directors of Poesía en Voz Alta version in Spanish and English.