The Dance of Reality, directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky in 2013 is a Chilean/French fantasy biopic telling the story of the director’s childhood in the city of Tocopilla. The film opens just before the Second World War. The young Alejandro lives with his parents: his Stalin-obsessed, brutal father Jaime (played by Brontis Jodorowsky) and his buxom mother Sara (played by Pamela Flores), a character who operatically sings all her lines. Alejandro struggles to gain the respect of his father, undergoing a string of challenges to impress him including a dentist trip without anaesthetic. The director chronicles a number of traumas that punctuate his childhood including the death of school friend and the discovery of the charred remains of a fireman. His father becomes angered by the Chilean right-wing president and vows to assassinate him, but fails and ends up paralysed and then tortured by the Nazis.

The film, as with Jodorowsky’s classic movies El Topo and Santa Sangre, is imbued with a healthy dose of Surrealist magic-realism. His actors, many related to the aging director, are fearless in what they agree to and, at times, the fantasy crosses the line (possibly intentionally) into farce, but it is always striking and never boring. There are heavy touches of Fellini here, particularly Amarcord, but Jodorowsky (typically) takes the poetic and sentimental approach of the Italian director and perverts it to produce something, at times, horrific. Imagine a cross between Fellini, Tod Browning, John Waters and P. T. Barnum and you’ll get a good sense of what you’re in for.

Watch in a double bill with Amarcord, but be prepared…