The most accessible film by Mexican avant-garde auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky, his horror head-scratcher divides its time between the sanitarium and the circus.
Fenix is a mini-magician whose knife-throwing dad cheats on his trapeze-artist mother.
Cue arm-lopping murders, dismembered elephants, religious ecstasies, dwarves and mambo musical interludes.
Whether it’s the work of a surrealist cine-poet or an emperor needing new clothes is an issue the abundant extras fail to clarify.
