El Topo

Alejandro Jodorowsky's 'acid Western' El Topo is either the work of a truly enlightened genius, or it is a massively pretentious piece of surrealist claptrap, the visual ramblings of a man who has taken far too many psychedelic drugs. Since I am neither a master of Zen spiritualism or a stoner, the film - all two hours and a smidge of it - left me utterly bewildered. I even picked up my hitherto unread copy of ''The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky' looking for answers; sadly, the book is just as hard to fathom.

The film's central character, El Topo (played by Jodorowsky), is a gunslinger who embarks on a quest to defeat four masters, which he does, after which he hangs out with a cave full of physically handicapped people, digging them a tunnel so that they can leave and head for a nearby town where they are promptly gunned down by the townsfolk. This brief synopsis doesn't do the sheer craziness of the film justice, but to catalogue all of the weird stuff that happens would take me forever, suffice to say that there's lots of dead rabbits, much female nudity, loads of bloody gunshots, fun with lizards, a man wearing three hats, eggs buried in sand, a bloke with no arms giving a piggyback to a man with no legs, and a boxing match with barbed wire gloves. And that's just the tip of the drug-fuelled iceberg.

The film is also crammed to the gills with religious symbolism that Jodorowsky no doubt feels is extremely profound, but which I guarantee will be totally lost on the majority of viewers. Sadly, one hundred and twenty five minutes of total confusion does not equal a good time in my book, and, as much as I enjoy strange movies, I cannot say that I had a good time with this one.

Maybe, just maybe, by watching El Topo, I have taken the first small step to my own spiritual enlightenment; more likely - to use an old IMDb cliché - it's just two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

?/10 - I can't really rate what I don't understand.

So far I had only seen Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre", but that one happens to be my all-time favorite film! One thing's for sure with this director whenever you check out one of his films for the first time: you should expect the unexpected and prepare yourself for not believing what your own eyes are observing most of the time. Just in case you really have to label "El Topo" with a genre, it would presumably be Western, but that still doesn't give you any idea of the film's content whatsoever. Within the first ten minutes alone, things occur that are already too weird to mention (like grown men shooting at women's shoes and bandits dancing and caressing monks!!) and these sequences aren't relevant to the actual plot yet! Well, I'd love to summarize the main story lines, but the truth is that I didn't understand one iota of it all. The pivot character El Topo, portrayed by the director himself, rides through the desert with a 7-year-old naked kid in tow. He exchanges the kid for a beautiful woman after defeating a gang of thugs and goes on a quest to visit four "masters" of the desert. Subsequently, he joins a community of mountain people and fervently helps them coming out of their dark habitat and into the open world. Yes, it's a very vague description, but that's because I didn't know what was going on anyway. Most likely, you won't either and that's not an insult to your personal intellect! It's just a messed up movie that you mainly just need to watch for its visual brilliance, symbolism and extremely stylish choreography. Every single character that walks through the screen is a demented & complex individual, and the protagonist is the absolute biggest weirdo of them all. He actually claims to be God himself – and really believes it, too – and does the most unpredictable things imaginable. Admittedly, this film isn't suitable for entertainment purposes. It's an intense and demanding experience that you should approach with an open state of mind and loads of patience. Purely elite cinema that can't be compared to anything else ever made.

"El Topo" was one of the first midnight-movie cult hits because of its visually stunning, mentally exciting indulgence in gratuitous sex and exaggerated violence…

Avenging angel El Topo—meant to be wise and mystical—rides into a town whose population has just been massacred… He guns down some of the cruel and perverse bandits responsible and brutally punishes their leader… He leaves his seven-year-old son with some monks and goes away with the gang leader's woman, Mara…

In the desert sands, El Topo and Mara make love, and she quickly falls in love with him… After their frantic love-making, she tells him that he can prove that he's the 'best' by killing the Four Masters…

For no apparent reason other than to please Mara, El Topo begins his mission, defeating and killing each of the Four Masters…

The film has been quite controversial… It lacks clarity and has painful emotions that make it quite compelling

Truly astonishing film from writer/director/composer Alejandro Jodorowsky. This is one of the most hypnotic films you'll ever see and is one that stays in the mind for days afterwards. Think Leone, Fellini and Peckinpah joining forces to make a mystical, existential and spiritual western and you're someway close to Jodorowsky's masterpiece. There are so many things to like and admire in this film from the sometimes purposely jarring editing and the beautiful music to the gorgeous vistas inhabited by a plethora of interesting and unusual characters. Track down a copy (Italy's Raro video currently has a decent dvd on release. I got mine from xploitedcinema) and you will not regret it. Be warned though - some of the images are pretty extreme, especially for 1971. A stunner and a definite must have for any serious film collector.

El Topo (1970)

*** (out of 4)

Often considered the king of the midnight movies, Alejandro Jodorowsky's EL TOPO is part Spaghetii Western and part avant garde madness. El Topo (Jodorowsky) is a mysterious gunfighter dressed in black who shows up out of nowhere and must go up against four other gunfighters.

EL TOPO is a rather miraculous movie in the fact that it became a huge box office success across the world. I say it's a wonder this happened because there really aren't any other movies quite like this one and there's no question that Jodorowsky has a certain flair for cinema and there's also no doubt that his vision is something no one could try to recreate. Part Bunuel, part madness, EL TOPO is an ultra-violent film that manages to be about whatever is going on in the viewer's mind.

I'm not going to sit here and call this film a masterpiece like so many have. Yes, I'm sure many potheads and acid trippers saw this in the theater back in the day and was blown away by it. You also have the likes of John Lennon and Roger Ebert who called this a masterpiece so there's no question that a wide range of people love this movie. While I didn't love it I can at least respect what the director was going for, which was pure madness.

I think the best thing that can be said about the film is that it has a unique look that isn't like any other movie ever made. The film benefits from the non-stop violence that runs throughout the picture and each death is usually done with a ton of gore coming out of the bullet wounds. People call George Romero or Lucio Fulci the Godfather of Gore but it could be said that the realistic violence and over-the-top gore started right here.

As for the story, there really isn't one. The viewer could draw countless conclusions as to what the film is about and not one explanation would be better or worse than another. Personally I thought the film ran on way too long and at times I found it to be quite boring. Still, the originality factor alone makes EL TOPO something everyone should see at least once.