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| From https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EiKYHPGlACg/TwLlf2ZrYSI/ AAAAAAAAGWo/57YNbKd7x50/s1600/0.jpg |
Director: Rafael Corkidi
Screenplay: Rafael Corkidi and Carlos
Illescas
Cast: Juan Barrón as Adán /
Jesuscristo / revolucionario; Pablo Corkidi as Pafnucio; Susana Kamini as
Patricia Hearst; Gina Morett as demonio / china poblana / Emiliano Zapata; Piya
as Malinche; Jorge Humberto Robles as Hernán Cortés / mensajero / juez / Romeo
/ revolucionario; Sebastián as voceador; José Luis Urquieta as the Soldier;
María de la Luz Zendejas as Frida Kahlo / Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz / Capitán
Synopsis: Leaving a congregation of holy American football players,
a young boy of holy origins called Pafnucio wanders the world trying to find a
woman who will give birth to the new child of God.
Made in Mexico, I wondered if
director Rafael Corkidi had any
connection to the Panic Movement, an avant-garde movement that included Alejando Jodorowsky, director of El Topo (1970) and lesser know
directors like Fernando Arrabal. To
my surprise, Corkidi was instead the
cinematographer on Jodorowsky's El Topo and The Holy Mountain (1973) alongside working on the likes of Juan López Moctezuma's The Mansion of Madness (1973). It feels
apt learning this as Holy Pafnucio
starts with a prologue where a black clad, cowboy like figure in the style of El Topo wanders the desert, passing
various surreal and uncomfortable juxtapositions in the desert such as a Christ
figure left abandoned on a cross, an Auschwitz gate with Jews wandering through
them, or a band of Ku Klux Klan marching on a railway line. What the prologue
actually means is to debate, but the sense of a figure going through various
landmarks of time, both those which are important but also tragically the worst
in humankind, feels apt when the film's raison d'etre is to follow a figure
known as Pafnucio who is trying to bring the son of God, or the son of the son
of God, into the world for our betterment.
The film proper from then begins
when he leaves and the aforementioned Pafnucio appears, presiding over American
football players in a monastery playing and praying in lotus positions as, once
he removes his sacred football gear costume, he goes on a journey to find the
perfect mother for the new holy child. To my utmost surprise, once he (a small
boy) goes on a journey through a series of vignettes meeting Patty Hearst, a
feminised Emiliano Zapata and the likes of Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez, Holy Pafnucio turns into a symbolic
surrealistic opera where everything eventually is sung in terms of dialogue.
Immediately from that reference,
you'll be aware the film is surreal. What Holy
Pafnucio actually means is to debate - but I am going to suggest that the
main progressive plot point, of the search for the mother, is worth viewing as
the message and enough in itself. Context is lost if you have scant knowledge
of figures Pafnucio encounters, Hernan Cortez in particular in his involvement with
the downfall of the Aztec civilisation a major example as, when Pafunucio
encounters him, his group in their decadence are to "civilise" where
they occupy. Time is subjective for obvious reasons, Pafnucio encountering
figures that have clearly out of the time space continuum to be here. Whether Rafael Corkidi and Carlos Illescas are religious in mind or subverting it in their
script, the story of Pafnucio constantly searching is of interest as he is,
literally, an innocent young boy just on a quest to find someone to conceive a
holy form into the world. The rich and privileged want him to choose them, a
Patty Hurst figure he considering, Patty Kane in the version I watched,
dismisses him, and the one perfect figure is on the run from a fascist
military, a doomed choice. That in itself, that the Son of God, or the Son of
the Son of God, would be stopped by the politics and corruption of the world is
an idea worthy for ninety plus minutes of singing and oddness.
In terms of the singing, casting individuals
who can audibly sing opera does bring a level of quality alongside suggesting
to me, as someone who has never really gotten into the medium, it would be
worth exploring as an artistic form as its sense of spectacle, and lack of
concern in entering vivid and explicit territory in plots, is the sort of thing
I'd get into with delight. The film does give the pieces respect regardless
whatever it also does, which includes improvised new lyrics which can be cruder
and even funny whilst never removing the innate power to the style, God's plan
getting a literal "fuck off" with a grandeur once or twice.
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| From http://rarefilm.net/wp-content/uploads/ 2015/10/Pafnucio-Santo-1977-2.jpg |
Again knowing that Corkidi worked Jodorowsky, there's a lot of the transgression, certainly a lot of nudity, but the film's emphasis in visuals really makes it apparent that he had an important part in cementing Jodorowsky's reputation. I do believing in the auteur theory for directors, but I also realise the importance of strong voices in the production team like cinematographers can both be neglected and that they can actually collaborate to help the director become more idiosyncratic through their own visions. Viewed even in a less than stellar version, the long expansive shots of locations from desert plain to urban environments have the same sense of scale and preciseness El Topo and The Holy Mountain had and are stunning to look at.
There is one scene that could
have only been made back in the seventies - our child prophet encountering a
nude woman dancing in the desert trying to woo him, clearly done with each in separate
shots and hopefully with stand-ins when they're not. Aside from this, even if Holy Pafnucio is difficult as you could
get for cinema, it was a delight in terms of a curious oddity but, even better,
a beautifully made one. A lot of it as mentioned is in the humour, just with
some of the song lyric revisions being hilarious, which helps a lot overcome any
accusations pretentious empty surrealism, and where a lot can still be read
into the film in its ideas. That, entirely through the images and plotting,
that whether Pafnucio goes, it is a struggle to bring the child of God to
Earth. Patty (Hurst) Kane couldn't give a damn in the midst of having been
kidnapped, yet to join the group who have her as the real Hurst did. The rich
and privileged are obviously not the right group to choose despite their
elegant surroundings. The female freedom fighter, more poignant knowing she is
an interpretation of Mexican Revolution figure Emiliano Zapata, has a rebel
lover who was killed and now has to go into hiding dressed as a man with a
pencil moustache, the perfect figure but fatalistic on her situation as the
military arrives. Even if the creators was satirising religion and cultural influences
at first, with our American footballers wandering the Mexican landscape,
there's a tragically humorous but also just tragic sense that even if a new
messiah, who'd do good for humankind, was possible to appear the right figures
to be the new Virgin Mary would be killed off and everyone else would be
distracted. It's a simple, pointed idea and Holy Pafnucio succeeds in it.
Couple this with the prologue,
with is naturally controversial as it explicitly evokes the likes of Auschwitz,
and there's a visible sense of darkness and sadness to the proceedings too
that, in this metaphorical world onscreen, a hope against this horror is going
to be prevented. Thus in its own way, the film gets to a meaningful message in
the simplest and bluntest ways possible. More importantly to this, there are
moments of lightness to contrast this sadness, even the opening a memorable sing-along
over the credits about the titular figure. Solace is found, even if they
themselves have had their hopes hammered down and ostracised, in a male and
female dancer who perform in a "traditional" style that embraces
their Mexican heritage that Pafnucio encounter. That in itself sees at least
the director has a clear concern and love for his heritage regardless of the
message of the film ultimately.
Abstract Spectrum: Beautiful/Surreal/Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium
Personal Opinion:
The musical, and its own sense of
logic, is itself something I will have to consider a lot more for this blog
even if many don't fully fall into the type of cinema I cover. If there's any
reason Holy Pafnucio doesn't reach
the highest ranking in the abstract is that, whilst it's still a bizarre
experience as a satirical surreal opera, it never has that growing sense of
spectacle that an opera or musical theatre usually has. But it's still a
peculiar and fascinating artefact from the seventies, one which might put
people off for very good reason with the prologue, which has the most
provocative moments and is seemingly disconnected from the actual film
afterwards. Certainly, for me having started without any knowledge of Rafael Corkidi, it was an immensely
important key to learn that he was an important figure for Alejandro Jodorowsky's career and someone who thankfully got
chances to make his own cinema. Now whether the other films he made could be
accessed will be to debate, but having one if pretty wonderful in itself as it
skewers expectations the moment everyone starts to sing.
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| From https://www.cca.org/blog/images/pafnucio-santo/pafnucio-santo-09.jpg |
great movie
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