I recently saw El Topo at the IFC Theater in NYC, and the restoration was beautiful. This film has only been available in North America in bootleg form, and these bootlegs ran from from passable to abominable. My personal copy was a VHS dub of a Japanese laserdisc, which had the film optically censored (you can't show pubic hair in Japan, but just about everything else), Japanese subtitles, and it was dubbed in English (it is supposed to be in Spanish). Now we will get it as the great Alejandro meant it to be seen. This film is really astounding at times, considering Jodorowsky was mainly known as a theater director, and he had only directed one previous feature (the little seen and frequently banned Fando y Lis). His films have a truly hallucinatory quality that is magnificent to behold. This was reportedly John and Yoko's favorite movie. They recommended that Allen Klein pick up the rights to it, and he did. Allen and Alejandro have been feuding for the last 30 years over this film and who owns the rights, but luckily, they've made peace (let's hope it stays that way). El Topo, along with The Holy Mountain, are Jodorowsky's best films. Many thanks to ABKCO films for finally releasing this masterpiece.Just to let you know, the above is a review of El Topo. This review is also appearing for some reason under the box set of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The box set is magnificent, by the way...
There's something for everyone in this film. The alternative, cultist crowd will enjoy the striking, often daring, imagery--the nude child who accompanies the mole, the wife impaled on a lofty stake towering over a pool of blood, the lust in the dust scenes, the mutilated bodies, the homoerotic images, etc. The philosophic and theologic-minded will have a field day with the film, drawing as it does on all three of the world's major religions with a good deal of "magic realism" thrown in. (El Topo's mortification and transformation into a clown recalls both St. Paul's "you must become a fool for Christ" and the privileged and sacred role of the clown in Eastern religions; his self-immolation summons up television imagery of Buddhist monks in Viet Nam during the time of the film's production.) The archetypologists will no doubt interpret the film as a variation on the Campbell monomyth, beginning with the hero's departure and--following numerous tests, descent into the belly of the whale, and resurrection--concluding with his return home.
But for a true film buff, "El Topo" deserves to stay around because of its clear indebtedness to a film tradition of cutting-edge, innovative movies--Bunuel's surrealist "Un Chien Andalou," "Simon of the Desert," and "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"; Godard's ellipsist editing in "Breathless" and "Contempt"; Peckinpah's over-the-top, cleansing violence in "Straw Dogs" and "The Wild Bunch."
My major problem with the film concerns the ubiquitous, practically non-stop gun play. At some moments the story makes it clear that "El Topo" cannot be a master of selfish fear until he renounces the gun, but more often than not the gun serves the cause of both justice and the assertion of personal will. When even as a clown he returns to the gun, I find it difficult to muster any sympathy for him. Perhaps the final image of his self-demise (a return to the earth echoing and building on the opening image of interment) is meant to be the story's major apocalypse, but I doubt that most of the 1970's' "midnight movie" crowd ever saw it that way.El Topo is the classic Mexican film hailed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono enough that it was shown at midnight in many cinemas for years. It is often credited as starting the midnight movie countercultural that helped bring attention to, and build cult film audiences for movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and David Lynch's Eraserhead. In that respect it is far from a mainstream film but it got enough attention that it is celebrated even today. I feel that this is with good reason, as El Topo is one of best films ever made. Alejandro Jodorowsky directs and stars as the title character.
El Topo begins with its eponymous character in the desert with his son. He tells the boy to bury a picture of his mother and his toy in the sand as now it is time for him to become a man. The boy is vulnerable but El Topo leads him by example while protecting him in their various interactions with others. The film understands the western genre and the machismo that often accompanies it. El Topo is one bad cowboy who can guarantee protection for anyone he cares about. So it really sucks when he soon leaves his son behind with a bunch of monks after emasculating some evil banditos. He leaves with a girl he saved and he names her Mara. Mara loves El Topo for being the alpha male that he is, so she convinces him to kill the four best gunslingers so he can be baddest cowboy of them all. He manages to defeat them in various significant ways. These scenes are rich in biblical and other religious references and operate allegorically to show that being a bad cowboy isn't really all it's cracked up to be. Nevertheless, for better or worse, El Topo kills all four of them and begins to learn four specific lessons along the way. He begins to feel guilty and while he is caught off guard during the beginning stages of his enlightenment, he is defeated by the unknown woman who followed El Topo and Mara during their journey. Viewing El Topo as vulnerable, Mara betrays him and leaves with this unknown woman gunslinger. El Topo's battered and shot up body is taken away to a cave by a multitude of unseemly characters.
Macrocosmically, the journey for El Topo overall suggests that his travels represent the rise and trials of Judeo-Christian theologies, with the son representing new Judeo-Christianity and El Topo representing the old philosphies. The second half of the film seems to comment on more contemporary dealings and even anticipates what will happen in the future. How will El Topo's son grow? How will he react to the father who abandoned him but who has himself grown? How will the dominant faith evolve? How will it maintain its truth and purity with humanity at the wheel?
In the literal sense, the second half of El Topo forwards to a few years later after he is brought to a cave by this band of deformed pariahs. When he wakes up we soon realize that El Topo is a different man. He shaves off his beard and head and dresses as a monk. He makes a plan to free these people from their cave so they can join the community outside. He plans to fund the building of a tunnel to free these people. He does this by going to the town with his dwarven girlfriend to entertain them with comedy and dancing, among other small jobs. The town itself is by no means a utopia as it is wrought with slavery and violence. A new priest at the church in town is revealed to be El Topo's own son who he abandoned years earlier. El Topo's son plans to kill him but he decides not to do so until the tunnel is complete. The tunnel gets finished and El Topo's son decides not to kill him. Meanwhile, the deformed people are free and as they head to the town the villagers there begin to shoot and kill all of them, to El Topo's dismay. El Topo unleashes his vengeance on the villagers, killing them all and in the process freeing their slaves. El Topo then lights himself on fire, which was a timely parallel to the Buddhist monks who did the same in protest of the Vietnam War. During his death, El Topo's new son is born to his dwarven girlfriend. If the Buddhist references are consistent then this would suggest that El Topo is reincarnated as his own son and religious truth will continue to surface again.
I think it is important to note that the content in El Topo could be perceived as both perplexing and offensive to many movie-goers. Alejandro Jodorowsky kills real animals, uses real deformed and dwarfed people, and liberally applies nudity and violence throughout. It doesn't offend me at all but I knew my wife wouldn't like it and I understand why, so I mention it here just in case.
El Topo is a complex story with many odd details as well as many religious references and metaphors that comment on a larger scale as I noted earlier. I've seen it many times and in my first few viewings I didn't understand it and thought it was entertaining but pretentious. It is not pretentious. Microcosmically, El Topo is a film about a human being finding himself, and finding out all alone what it means to be alive. It is about independently becoming a good man as a good man is defined in the eyes of Alejandro Jodorowsky. It is obviously a deeply personal film for its director and it may not touch on elements personal to everyone in its audience, but it definitely did for me. Jodorowsky invokes religious references as a vehicle to express his own torments and challenges and how the enlightment experience for El Topo is merely mirroring his own experiences. It's commentary addresses oceans of issues in many layers. Conjuring up the imagination to produce this web of ideas so alive is indeed an ambitious undertaking. I find El Topo to be profoundly inspiring in a way that few films are. Its significance alone should at least justify one viewing for you and I hope you get the same satisfaction that I did. Perhaps you will like it enough to enjoy El Topo again and again.
Read Best Reviews of El Topo (1970) Here
NOTE: For the purpose of this review, I will be addressing the new Blu-Ray editions of "El Topo" and its sequel "The Holy Mountain" together. I viewed them back to back and feel that it is easy to see the two films as one experience.Blu-Ray specs: If all you care about is how the new discs stack up, let's get that out of the way. Both films have received new HD transfers and look better and crisper than any other version that I've seen. That day-glo blood is potently orange! El Topo is in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio (won't be in widescreen), while The Holy Mountain is anamorphic. Most notable special features on El Topo are Jodorowsky commentary and an additional interview. Most notable special features on The Holy Mountain are a commentary track, deleted scenes, and insight into the film restoration. Both have traditional extras like the trailer, photo gallery, and script excerpts.
Madman or genius? Pretentious hokum or revolutionary cinema? Alejandro Jodorowsky is a film maker whose vision brooks very little middle ground. It seems to be a love it or hate it proposition. In truth, I'm a fan--but his work is definitely not for everyone. I may get into trouble with the most ardent of Jodorowsky enthusiasts when I say that I get more visceral satisfaction from the madcap imagery in his films than to any purported deep meaning. As two of his trademark films hit Blu-Ray, I was pleased to get an opportunity to check out his landmark films "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain" again after about ten years. Experimental, controversial, provocative, disturbing--these demented films helped define the cult movie scene in the early seventies. "El Topo," in fact, played as a midnight movie in New York City for seven straight months. Today, they are still bizarrely fascinating but, once again, their divisive nature is likely to garner as many (if not more) detractors than admirers.
Of the two films, El Topo is closer to my heart. Starting out as a deranged western, the film morphs into a bloody existential quest, and ends as a struggle for redemption. The early scenes of this film always trap me into a full viewing! The central hero, played by Jodorowsky himself, is a gunfighter who becomes corrupted. Searching for meaning within his new existence, he tracks down four opponents with advanced battle skills and enlightened viewpoints. But these battles don't offer the solutions he had hoped for. Another chance at salvation comes about with a clan of misfits, but do they really require saving? Absurd, funny, and always intriguing--this is an incredible journey to nowhere and I love it!
The Holy Mountain has much loftier goals--but, to my mind, bigger isn't always better. A direct sequel, although relatively unrelated except for the central character, it picks up in the aftermath of the first film. Our hero now embraces a Christ-like countenance and the first third of the film presents some of the grimmest religion related spectacles you're likely to encounter on film. (In fact, the was a huge uproar at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival). Achieving a heightened state of being, he assembles a collection of powerful individuals--each representing a different planet. Stripping them down, the gang embarks on a lengthy existential quest to take a place among the gods. Strong religious allegory, mystical symbolism, and ideological iconography are brought together and are inherent parts of this film--but philosophical points tend to be hammered home. Sometimes "The Holy Mountain" loses me, it can be very heavy handed and message oriented. But still, an intriguing example of avant garde film making.
Again, the most arresting aspects of both films for me are most assuredly the visual qualities. If you like the gruesome and provocative imagery of Bunuel or Pasolini, you'll definitely want to check the films out. For entertainment, my easy choice is "El Topo." (4 stars) If you're searching for something fraught with meaning, try "The Holy Mountain." (3 1/2 stars) Or catch them together as I did. KGHarris, 4/11."El Topo," long enmeshed in litigation, finally makes its bow on Blu-ray. Originally released in 1971, the strange Western "El Topo" perplexed moviegoers and still will cause some head scratching, though the movie has become a huge cult classic over the past 40 years. The film pays homage to the spaghetti Westerns of the late 60's/early 70's while incorporating a great deal of curious religious symbolism and grotesque imagery. It is definitely not a movie for everyone.
Alejandro Jodorowsky directed, wrote the screenplay, composed the music, and stars as the title character, a mysterious gunfighter in black who roams the Mexican desert. El Topo is accompanied for much of the film by his son, who learns several brutal lessons about growing up. Among other things, the boy witnesses firsthand how his father deals with a corrupt Mexican army colonel (David Silva), who's been terrorizing local villages.
"El Topo" is unrated and contains scenes of extreme violence, violence against women, blood and gore, male and female nudity, strong language, and simulated sex. The movie ran a full year in New York at midnight showings. Bonus Blu-ray features include commentary and on-camera interview with director Jodorowsky, and a photo gallery with original script excerpts.
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