el topo
el topo and the lamb lies down on broadway (jodorowsky and gabriel) .
and el topo by the end, as the bees on his grave would imply .
only god forgives (2013) nicolas winding refn cited el topo as an influence for the character of julian. the film is also dedicated to the director of el topo .
badass beard: el topo sports a pretty impressive one for the first half of the film .
deconstructing griffith (2016) golda compares sancho to el topo from
that jodorowsky film .
the image at the head of this post is from the the son of el topo graphic novel .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing el topo near you .
last i heard about the el topo sequel was couple years ago so let' s hope it happens .
deliverance (1972) deliverance has a scene of a man riding another man, much like in el topo .
alejandro jodorowsky is planning to shoot a sequel to
el topo
and allegedly david lynch is to produce it .
hola! seating good. waiters good. drinks bueno. food exceptional. we always enjoy el topo. always bueno !
left for dead: desconocida shoots el topo and leaves him for dead in the desert and the end of part 2 .
it was a model for my artistic quest, but once i was an adult. i never felt traumatized by what happened to my character in el topo. a work of art is like a dream. everything you dream is about you. if you watch the film carefully, you will discover that the boy in el topo, in that scene, is alejandro, and el topo is jaime, his father. el topo is a story and a film about failure. el topo wants to evolve but he fails. don’t worry so much about how it influenced me, but how it can influence you .
alejandro jodorowsky is planning to shoot a sequel to
el topo
and allegedly david lynch is to produce it. : movies
el topo homepage at the symbol grows (jodorowsky fan site) the rest of the site is definitely worth perusing for jodorowsky fans .
crucified hero shot: el topo at the end of part two, complete with stigmata in his hands, feet, and side .
the el topo and holy mountain director thrilled the 1970s counter - culture. now his crazed visions are turning on everyone from santigold to kasabian
[ video essay ] for all of its easily mocked elements ,
el topo
is a work of mad cinematic genius that sticks .
el topo' s wife does conceive a son, ironically there was a sequel planned but it' s been stuck in development hell .
the sequel to el topo
sons of el topo
( formerly known as abel / cain) is going to be done as a graphic album now. jodorowsky' s next movie is going to be an adaption of his comic book
son of the gun
.
el topo so turned on john lennon (who had urged klein, his manager, to get the distribution rights) that he helped finance jodorowsky' s next film, the audacious, 1973 spiritual fable holy mountain. (in a testament to el topo' s catholic appeal, shock - rocker marilyn manson is also a big fan and was on board to star in jodorowsky' s now - abandoned el topo sequel. )
an unique western classic full of surrealist, violence and symbols. el topo is a mistical work that tells the redemption of a gunslinger that look for perfection, but just find his ending. after this we met a different face of el topo that, again bring he to his strange end .
an outlaw, el topo, challenges the invincible four masters of the desert for the love of a woman. he defeats them, achieving a higher level of consciousness until his woman betrays him. starting a new existence as a holy man, el topo undertakes the liberation of a community of outcasts .
a child kills themselves with the gun being passed around the church, once el topo' s son has switched the blank round with a live one .
in the end, any private interpretation of el topo jodorowsky holds are his business, not ours; it’s just trivia. he leaves us free to find our own meaning in it, or to find none at all. because what could jodorowsky have intended to say that could be more powerful than the vista of endless unrealized possibilities that he introduces to us? if you can’t find the meaning in el topo, then you have found el topo ‘s true meaning .
... the story of' el topo' proves too scattered and weak to bear its digressions and vague symbols that suggest everything, anything and nothing .
el topo is considered to be the first “midnight movie, ” the first movie to be screened in theaters almost exclusively after 12 am. although the heyday of the midnight movie has past, it was a clever marketing gimmick that stressed the unusual nature of the film and positioned el topo as an event rather than just another flick .
oh crap: the second desert master' s expression when he realizes he' s been outwitted by el topo. though it' s more of an exasperated version .
the most serious artistic criticism, however, is that the second half of the film (featuring el topo as an enlightened pacifist monk) isn’t nearly as involving as the first half (featuring el topo as a flawed spirit of vengeance and ambition). this causes the film to end in a slight downward trend, rather than a climax .
laying the foundations for a transcendent masterpiece or exploiting the mystical aura that permeates the original movie to produce a cash cow? volume 2 and 3 of the sons of el topo will lay bare the truth but, for now, enjoy the splendour of ladrönn’s breathtaking art and bask in the wonderful offbeat and violent world of … jodorowsky’s el topo .
el topo decides to confront warrior masters on a trans - formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man. el topo (the mole) claims to be god, while dressed as a gunfighter in black, riding a horse through a spiritual, mystical landscape strewn with old western movie, and ancient eastern religious symbols. bandits slaughtered a village on his path, so el topo avenges the massacred, then forcibly takes their leader' s woman mara as his. el topo' s surreal way is bloody, sexual and self - reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters .
if you think there is a mighty significance to this prominent, powerful and recurring image that helps unfold el topo ‘s mystical meaning, then you are falling into jodorowsky’s trap .
lady macbeth: mara turns out to be this, as she urges el topo to go on killing even as the emotional toll it' s taking on him becomes obvious .
the fear of god: 25 years of' the exorcist' (1998) (tv movie) friedkin :
i saw a film called' el topo.'
el topo decides to confront warrior masters on a trans - formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man. el topo (the mole) claims to be god, while dressed as a gunfighter in black, riding a horse through a spiritual, mystical landscape strewn with old western movie, and ancient eastern religious symbols. bandits slaughtered a village on his path, so el topo avenges the massacred, then forcibly takes their leader' s woman mara as his. el topo' s surreal way is bloody, sexual and self - reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters. written by david stevens
an outlaw, el topo, challenges the invincible four masters of the desert for the love of a woman. he defeats them, achieving a higher level of conscio ...
dwarfs, slaves, superstitious gospel - mongering priests, maimed circus freaks and extremely violent gunslingers are sprinkled with a touch of zen buddhism, christian mythology, black magic and eastern philosophies. the movie el topo will forever be etched in the mind as jodorowsky’s masterpiece. and now the mind - broadening universe of el topo is brought to the world of french language comics .
should we expect his next film to be as crazy as the original el topo ?
of course! i am the same ,
he says .
i am still radical !
like a prophecy too dangerous for its times, alejandro jodorowsky' s infamous, myth - and - blood - soaked cult film el topo went into hiding not long after its 1970 release .
starring a very virile - looking jodorowsky wearing all black, el topo is about a man named el topo (the mole) who begins his spiritual quest as a vicious vigilante who brings down harsh, cruel, pitiless justice on evildoers. as the film opens, the antihero rides a dark horse toward us through the barren desert. it soon becomes apparent that there' s a boy (the director' s 7 - year - old son, brontis jodorowsky) - - naked, except for a hat and shoes - - holding onto el topo' s shoulders .
alejandro jodorowsky’s el topo just might be the weirdest, most bizarre, genre - bending film we’ve ever seen. this 1970 mystical western - disguised, symbol - ridden epic exploration of spirituality, …
nearly four decades after the acid western “el topo” brought chilean filmmaker / actor / writer / philosopher alejandro jodorowsky to the world’s attention, the original midnight film will finally get a sequel — of sorts .
, the gunfighter el topo (jodorowsky) crosses the desert with his naked son (played by jodorowsky’s son brontis) but leaves him behind to go on a quest to kill the four master gunfighters. at the quest’s end, el topo is left for dead, but he awakes 20 years later in a cave where he is worshipped as a god by dwarves and the physically deformed. el topo and a dwarf woman, seeking to raise money to build a tunnel out of the cave, climb out to a nearby town, an evil place where slavery is legal and a church service includes russian roulette .
the sons of el topo volume 1 – kaïn by alejandro jodorowsky and jose ladrönn is published in french by glénat. it is a full - color hardcover counting 64 pages and retails for €14. 95 .
for all its anti - consumerist anarchy, el topo recycles the consumerist ideology that authenticity is a matter of collecting as many experiences as possible. (
be all you can be ,
indeed. )
el topo is filled with “honey in the lion” moments; in fact, the whole movie is a succession such moments. el topo digging up eggs in the desert. an armless man carrying a legless man. a warrior who fights with a butterfly net. a church where the services consist of games of russian roulette. jodorowsky is attracted to such images not because they are meaningful, in the sense of “adding up” to an overweening mystical vision, but because they feel meaningful. he’s more interested in the mysterious effect these images have on the viewer than in teaching the audience a philosophical lesson. these “honey in the lion” moments constantly poke through el topo ‘s narrative, like fragments of ancient texts that were just too good to be left out, too powerful to not be divinely inspired. el topo is a scripture without a dogma .
i am intrigued, so i get jodorowsky on the telephone from paris. i remind him how crazy people can get talking about el topo (released in 1971) and the holy mountain (1973). a film - buff colleague at sun media remembers walking out of el topo in the 1970s. wayne janes was, and still is, disgusted after buying a ticket because john lennon of the beatles had championed the film .
another person’s loss (the movie audience) is another person’s gain though (the comic audience) and now jodorowsky, together with superstar artist ladrönn, has released the sons of el topo – volume 1 kaïn. kaïn is the eldest son of two, sired by el topo by two different women. vowing revenge for abandoning him, kaïn sets upon a doomed journey to murder his now holy father. names are power though in jodorowsky’s world and it soon becomes apparent why his son was named kaïn. what follows is a drug - induced savage spectacle that features plenty of bizarre and violent confrontations between kaïn, the world and el topo’s followers .
the ceaseless shocking images on the screen, are what made
el' topo
an underground hit in one new york theater for months in 1970. not the story, not the performances, not the stars (jodorowsky himself plays el topo and the child is his own son). the images. john lennon and yoko ono saw it, loved it, and convinced beatles manager allen klein to buy and release it. the film went on to play all over the world and engender countless interpretations. jodorowsky encourages such speculation by titling sections of the film after books of the bible (
psalms
), and making el topo perhaps a christ figure .
el topo ,
first released theatrically in 1969, made jodorowsky a household name with the counterculture crowd of the early 1970s .
el topo
provided the template for
midnight movie madness ,
screening seven nights a week at midnight for seven straight months at the elgin cinema in new york. paradoxically, the film was thoroughly panned by the film critic of the new york times but it was then lauded by the paper' s art critic who called it
a monumental work of filmic art .
to say that el topo became a
cult classic
is something of an understatement in light of its surprisingly broad acceptance fueled, in part, by ringing
there are plans for a $ 15m sequel to el topo, in which jodorowsky' s friend and fan, marilyn manson, is expected to star. but raising capital is difficult for jodorowsky, and he has no expectations .
will actually see the light of day. but with adan jodorowsky saying his father is currently experiencing a creative burst of energy and still making the film, there' s hope we could one day see el topo ride again .
what the hell, hero? : numerous times with el topo. at least once with jodorowski, who was hailed as a creative genius: there is a scene where el topo rapes mara that jodorowksi claims was not staged and was actually him raping the actress. however, jodorowski has made a number of very outlandish claims about himself, his life and his work, and it is very advised to take what he says with a few grains of salt .
i am sad to say we are giving up on el topo. we are going to give it some time before we go back. the last few visits have been disappointing. hopefully, they get back to what we remembered .
an episodic picaresque that follows a man' s quest - - for, um... god? his inner child? buddhist enlightenment? we' re never quite sure - - el topo is a fable packed with christian, hindu, confucian and zen buddhist symbols, not to mention references to freud and jung. but, as the film' s trailer succinctly puts it, el topo
is not a religious film, it contains all religions .
but what el topo does is to illustrate a very post - modern idea that through failure success eventually emerges. el topo may die failing to save the people from the cave, but when he dies, a beehive appears, just as upon the death of each of the master gunfighters in the desert. he does not find any final answer or enlightenment, but just as the movie goes on after all of the first four master gunfighters die, there is the implication that there is more beyond the death of el topo. his children survive to go on into the world further. his ultimate act is to destroy himself. his life, at the close of the film, is a negation .
ever since the nineties, alejandro jodorowsky has been trying to gather the funds for a sequel for el topo. after finding out the hard way that studios thought the venture far too risky he turned to comics to broaden the el topo saga. it is a mystery to me how he was not able to find the necessary funds for the sequel, admirers of his cult movie are a regular who’s who of directors and actors. maybe he should have turned to crowdfunding ?
: the legitimate 2005 release of an el topo dvd was the event of the millenium for weird movie fans. the film is included as part of the 5 - disc set “the films of alejandro jodorowsky, ” which also includes dvds of
the second year, after the cannes premiere of
santa sangre ,
i asked him why
el topo
had been out of circulation. he blamed allen klein, the man who had put the film in circulation in the first place .
after finally freeing the trapped lepers from the mountain, the townspeople respond by massacring them. in a rage el topo charges at them, and despite being hit with heavy gunfire he scares the townspeople away and in a dying act, immolates himself .
meanwhile, lennon had persuaded klein to put up $ 1m to help jodorowsky make another film, the holy mountain. like el topo, it was a spiritual quest, this time following a christ - like figure (jodorowsky, again) seeking immortality .
el topo was normal, the holy mountain was abnormal. my ambition was enormous. i wanted to make a picture like you would make a holy book, like the bhagavad gita or the tao te ching. i went very far .
accordingly, el topo opens with a passage that could be an existential journey for one' s soul or a spoof of a sergio leone spaghetti western: the bearded, leather - clad gunfighter el topo (jodorowsky himself) and his young son (brontis jodorowsky) ride through the desert and into a hamlet of bloodily decimated people and animals. from then on, it' s a winding, spiraling road of evil bandits, mystical foes, and whip - cracking dykes, spiked with indelible, inexplicable imagery .
twice in el topo, we see bees building hives in corpses, just as the old testament bees made a home in the carcass of the lion. both uses of the image come at a crucial time in the film. the first appearance is in the climax to the first half of the movie. after he has finished his trials with the four masters, and feels that he has lost his soul, el topo comes across the body of the first master in a shallow grave, covered by a beehive. in despair, he grabs the comb and smears the honey all over his mouth and black beard. the image also appears in the final shot in the film. after el topo immolates himself at the climax, his ashes are covered by a swarm of bees .
as someone who was born and raised in ca and craves authentic mexican food el topo is not the place. the food is mediocre at best and the service is even worse. the only redeeming value here is the margaritas are decent, but is that ...
jodorowsky is the protagonist, as well as the director, writer and co - composer. he is everywhere; he is, in his own words, “the maker of the topo. ” el topo is certainly a shrewd and canny film, expertly codifying various counterculture trends and clichés, as well as making a stew with various religions, which lead vincent canby to call him an “intellectual william randolph hearst” and pauline kael to label him “an exploitation filmmaker. ” unlike most exploitation filmmaker though, he doesn’t even have the courage of his bad taste and pretends that el topo, with all its cheap religious symbolism and mystical mumbo jumbo, really means something. kael again: “he’s an exploitation filmmaker, but he glazes everything with a useful piety. it’s the violence plus the unctuous prophetic tone that make el topo a heavy trip... jodorowsky has come up with something new, exploitation joined to sentimentality - the sentimentality of the counter - culture. ”
the lone rider is el topo. the name translates as
the mole .
the movie informs us that a mole spends his life digging tunnels to the sky, only to go blind when it sees the sun. this is not quite true, but truth is not allowed to interfere with its use as a convenient symbol. will el topo dig free and go blind? and if he does, what will that mean? pauline kael observed that fellini' s
la dolce vita
is filled with symbols, and they' re all obvious .
el topo
is filled with symbols, and they' re not obvious. i am reminded of one of ebert' s laws :
if you have to ask what something symbolizes, it doesn' t .
or it stands for itself .
official trailer for renowned director alejandro jodorowsky' s 1970 cult classic film el topo, now available on dvd and blu - ray from abkco films. get the dvd here: urltoken or blu - ray here: urltoken get the films of alejandro jodorowsky box set here: urltoken
valhalla rising (2009) in an interview nicolas winding refn (who is a big fan and a personal friend of alejandro jodorowsky) confirmed that el topo was one of his biggest influences for valhalla rising. both films are conceived by their directors as projections of acid trips .
but it was with his next film, el topo (the mole), that jodorowsky, less a director and more a canny, barnum - esque mystical showman, tapped the zeitgeist. the story of its success / notoriety is almost as interesting as the film itself. championed by john lennon, who urged his manager allen klein to buy the rights, el topo, billed as “a film too heavy to be shown any other way, ” was turned into a midnight movie sensation at ben barenholtz’s elgin theater in new york city, where it ran for six months and brought underground fame to actor / director / writer / messiah / bullshit artist jodorowsky. well - known fans included dennis hopper, peter fonda, yoko ono and peter gabriel, whose concept album with genesis, the lamb lies down on broadway was supposedly inspired by the film. fando y lis was a sort of dry run for el topo with its woozy mishmash of styles, undigested surrealist clichés and episodic quest narrative. what was missing was jodorowsky himself, who describes { el topo } as “a quest for sainthood. ”
the new dvd collection of his films (
el topo
fando y' lis ,
the holy mountain ,
la cravate ,
but not
santa sangre ,
which is separately available) brings him back into focus as a great eccentric original .
the film opens with the black - clad gunfighter el topo (jodorowsky) riding into a small village on his horse with his naked son. the village has been ransacked, and there is blood and death everywhere. jodorowsky locates the criminals responsible — they are led by a military officer. el topo renders frontier justice and frees the surviving monks from the village and a woman. he leaves his son with the monks, and rides off with the woman. she convinces him to seek out and defeat four master gunfighters in the desert. he does so, and, finding them superior in skill, defeats them through trickery or luck. there is symbolism all over the movie. it is exaggerated symbolism, often religious. the master gunfighters each resemble a different religion. along the way a black - clad woman whose voice is overdubbed with that of a man joins the pair. the last master that el topo “defeats” actually kills himself, to prove to that his life means nothing. the woman in black then shoots el topo, and his body is taken away by a band of physically handicapped or deformed people .
the movie is divided in three parts. during the first part, a gunslinger known as el topo (who travels with his naked 7 year old son) murders a group of bandits in revenge for the massacre of an entire village. the bandits are strangely dressed, degenerate and led by a fat, balding colonel. in the process, he liberates a woman he calls mara (who the bandit leader was using as a slave). el topo falls in love with mara and rides off with her, abandoning his son at the monastery the bandits had occupied .
is a continuous stream of unforgettable images; any frame chosen at random inflames the imagination. my personal favorite is the lonsghot after el topo kills third master gunfighter, where his body lies bleeding in his own watering hole while the rest of the landscape is littered with rabbit corpses. the iconic image, however, is el topo riding off on horseback with a naked child sitting behind him, holding a black umbrella over his head. this image is particularly representative because it shows not only jodorowsky’s gift for composition, but his penchant for shamelessly borrowing from other sources of inspiration :
in the second part, mara convinces el topo that before she can love him he will need to be the best gunfighter in the world. in order to do so, he needs to find and kill four great masters who live in the desert. with the aid of a semi topless woman who speaks with a man' s voice (see above re: lsd) el topo tracks down the four masters and kills them all by means of tricks. once he has killed them all, the mysterious woman shoots him, seduces mara, and leaves him to die .
interesting how you say our food is
not to your like
, yet you feel the need to tell everyone else, with no particulars, using your sister as support. el topo gets rave reviews, mostly right here from those who have the gumption to speak up ...
a bizarre, ultra - violent, allegorical western ,
el topo
is set in two halves that have widely been compared to the old and new testaments of the bible. in the first half, jodorowsky plays a violent, black - clad gunfighter who, accompanied by his naked son, sets off on a murderous mission to challenge four zen masters of gunfighting, and learns from each of them a great lesson before they die. in the second half, el topo sets out to find personal redemption, secluding himself in a subterranean community to learn the ways of peace, but unfortunately death is never far away. first released as an underground film, it was thanks to john lennon that the film was acquired by allen klein of abkco, who bought the rights to
el topo
and then financed alejandro jodorowsky' s next film
the holy mountain .
a bizarre, ultra - violent, allegorical western ,
el topo
is set in two halves that have widely been compared to the... old and new testaments of the bible. in the first half, jodorowsky plays a violent, black - clad gunfighter who, accompanied by his naked son, sets off on a murderous mission to challenge four zen masters of gunfighting, and learns from each of them a great lesson before they die. in the second half, el topo sets out to find personal redemption, secluding himself in a subterranean community to learn the ways of peace, but unfortunately death is never far away. first released as an underground film, it was thanks to john lennon that the film was acquired by allen klein of abkco, who bought the rights to
el topo
and then financed alejandro jodorowsky’s next film
the holy mountain .
the holy mountain scandalized the 1973 cannes film festival. even more incomprehensible than el topo, it is a search for truth amid a torrent of religious imagery and mystical references from the occult. jodorowsky, who reads tarot cards in real life, once again stars, this time as the alchemist .
it doesn’t sound as if jodorowsky is committed to either a sensual travel or the son of el topo next, but he seemed incredibly hopeful that he would be making one of these two pictures next. i expect we will be hearing about which way he’s going very soon though, as he didn’t hang around following the premiere of the dance of reality, and he seems to be very keen to get working on a new feature soon. my money would probably be on the son of el topo, as it appears very much like he is shopping that film around for financing right now .
the third part begins with el topo awaking in an underground cavern filled with deformed people, who believe he is some kind of god. he discovers they' re trapped in the cavern, and their deformities are the result of inbreeding. after sucking on a psychedelic beetle (see above re: the lsd, again) and undergoing a symbolic rebirth (ummm... never mind, you probably get it by now) el topo volunteers to dig a tunnel out of the mountain and in the process falls in love with a dwarf girl and destroys america, or at least capitalist amerika .
: el topo, a figure dressed in black and carrying his nude son on horseback behind him, uses his supernatural shooting ability to free a town from the rule of a sadistic colonel. he then abandons his son for the colonel’s woman, who convinces him to ride deep into the desert to face off against four mystical gunfighters. all of the gunfighters die, but el topo is betrayed, shot, and dragged into a cave by a society of deformed people, who ask the outlaw turned pacifist to help them build a tunnel so they can escape to a dusty western town run by degenerate religious fascists .
alejandro jodorowsky crafts a stunning, visceral and action packed western film that can actually be compared to some of the genres finest works. el topo is a great film, a film that is unprecedented in its raw energy, and fluid direction. cult director judorowsky also acts, and he delivers a film that is remarkable in the way that it showcases its violence. no other western has taken such an approach as jodorowsky. brilliantly shot, acted and with a great story, this is a fine picture that is almost a forgotten classic of the genre. as far as westerns are concerns, i would call el topo as one of the finest along with once upon a time in the west, the good, the bad and the ugly and the wild bunch. the film should definitely be rediscovered by genre fans, but due to some of its striking images, this may not appeal to everyone. if you' re looking for something a bit different in the genre, el topo is that film to watch. alejandro jodorowsky is a terrific filmmaker, and he doesn' t compromise whatsoever. his vision is striking, unrelenting, and the sheer raw power of el topo will grab your attention from the moment in starts. the story is well crafted and it is a film that resonates well, as jodorowsky crafts a film that is very unique in the western genre, a film that displays certain ideas that are the director' s trademark. el topo is a pleasant film, one that ranks among the finest in the genre, and if you' ve enjoyed many of the spaghetti westerns, you' ll surely enjoy this one. the film has a raw power that makes it memorable due to its visuals, and you are simply enthralled at what you are watching. if you enjoy obscured, cult cinema, then el topo is a film very well worth your time .
as for confusing audiences, jodorowsky couldn' t care less. in the case of el topo, he says ,
i wanted it to be a free audience. somebody can laugh. the other can get angry. somebody can love. i don' t want to give to the audience something clear .
with this event, we begin to pay tribute to alejandro jodorowsky and to present a selection of his exquisite filmography. . el topo followed by fando y lis (1968), la montaña sagrada (1973), santa sangre (1989) and the national premiere of la danza de la realidad. welcome, master jodorowsky .
now, he has decided to convert several abandoned movies into comic form, as well, including “son of el topo, ” an original idea called “abel cain, ” and a metaphysical western - casino - gangster story called “king shot, ” which at one point had a cast attached that included nick nolte and marilyn manson .
things get complicated when el topo takes a lover named mara (played by mara lorenzio, a non - actor who, jodorowsky says, was tripping on lsd during the shoot). we soon learn that mara is a mexican version of lady macbeth, egging on her man to prove himself by killing the four sharpshooter masters of the desert (oh, yeah... .) contaminated by mara, el topo can win only by cheating. but as a true hero, he is wracked by guilt. eventually, he undergoes a version of christ' s passion and begins atoning for his sins - - by helping out hordes of deformed dwarfs .
many of these have been exiled to a cave inside a mountain. el topo, threatened with death, bargains to free them from their cave and digs a tunnel into the mountain. generations of inbreeding have presumably produced the birth defects on view; no word about how the cave people have been able to eat over the years .
alejandro jodorowsky' s el topo (1970) has rightly earned a place in the pantheon of cult cinema. watch any number of documentaries or interviews with the man himself and the film will often stand proud as the pioneer of the
midnight movie
; a film obviously shown late due to its content but also exuding free reign …
el topo does stand up to its rep: it' s still one of the most distinctive, if solipsistic, translations to film of one man' s vision. it contains images and scenes of breathtaking sublimity - - some quite beautiful, others nasty and cruel - - as well as boasting a few comic gags straight out of vaudeville .
to some, el topo remains something of a dubious endeavor, as naïve in its way as it is wise. as ludicrous and egomaniacal as jodorowky often comes off, i’m tempted to take him at his word, and there’s undeniably something sincere about topo’s quest through his inner desert and the struggle he faces when he emerges from the darkness. it’s perhaps because jodorowsky balances so carelessly between creating spiritual art and succumbing to total artifice that his film seems to sprout and show off new feathers every time one revisits it .
alejandro jodorowsky is not exactly a household name, but he was one of the most significant counterculture filmmakers of the ’70s and his second film, el topo, remains one of the key midnight / head / trip movies. hoberman and rosenbaum gave him a whole chapter, titled “through the wasteland of the counterculture, ” in their informative and entertaining 1983 book midnight movies, primarily focusing on el topo and its follow up, the holy mountain. several years ago, after a long period of unavailability, a dvd set of his films was released, which also included a 1994 documentary, la constellation jodorowsky, his early short film, once considered lost, la cravate and two soundtrack cds .
alejandro jodorowsky, guest of honor at the 11th ficm, where he will present his new film la danza de la realidad, is here and will spend the night in morelia. the prelude to his visit began at the cinépolis centro with the screening of el topo (1970), one of the masterpieces that make up his extraordinary filmography. his sons, brontis, actor and theater director, and adán, a musician who will exhibit his short film el ladrón de voces here, were present at the screening .
in 2006, following the restoration and remastering of both films to hd ,
el topo
and
the holy mountain
were shown in the special events section at the prestigious 44th annual new york film festival. the films, originally made in the 1970s in mexico, were restored and remastered under the close supervision of jodorowsky himself. that same year both films were featured in the cannes classics section of the cannes international film festival .
el topo
was screened before a black - tie audience at salle bunuel in the palais des festivals and
the holy mountain
was honored with the prized
centerpiece screening ,
which was held for the first time ever on the beach at sundown .
in advance of blindman' s home video release, the film will be given theatrical screenings this friday and saturday at midnight et at the ifc center in new york city. the movie also will be shown on october 21 at the castro theater in san francisco as a double feature with director alejandro jodorowsky' s famous cult flick' s el topo .
oh .
but, i am making another movie instead! i have signed the contract already with some russian producers. i will do son of el topo – a sequel. it' s a conflict between two brothers who need to come to a solution. i am about to start four months of preparation. i can tell you nothing today .
maybe it is a human, honest thing. maybe it' s why a young person wants to see (el topo and the holy mountain) now, because maybe today' s movies are 100 percent business .
when i challenge the percentage, jodorowsky chuckles and settles on 92% instead. he is a provocateur with a sense of humour .
if anything, el topo is a hoot to watch (in moderate doses) and a powerful reminder that we' ve become a people obsessed with having experiences of the material, and spiritual, kind, regardless of their content. there' s not much you can do with a gourd - full of memories, except recollect them - - usually alone .
great film experience to revisit. as opposed to bringing out the magnifying glass on the image i was content just to enjoy the improved colors and higher detail via the superior resolution. it has its transfer imperfections but is the best way to see el topo at present in the comfort of your midnight - madness home theater display. we look forward to holy mountain via
i still agree with that and do not think the symbols add up to a conclusion. but now having seen more of jodorowsky' s work, i think jodorowsky' s method is not without a purpose. what is el topo seeking in the desert? why, he is seeking symbols, images, bizarre people and events, with which to fill the film .
due to an acrimonious dispute over ownership rights between jodorowsky and allen klein, the film was withdrawn from circulation for 30 years, during which time it could only be seen on bootlegged vhs copies. the scarcity of screenings vaulted el topo ‘s already powerful reputation into a legendary one. jodorowsky and klein reconciled in 2004 and the film had a legal dvd release in 2005 .
el topo was burned into the frontal lobes of my 20 - year - old self. not so much for the mystical overtones but for expanding the boundaries of cinema in terms of morals, philosophy, genre - bending and its reflections on not only the audience but on human relations and how power warps those affiliations. it laid the foundation of the midnight movies concept .
the film plays like a psychedelic vision quest courtesy of sergio leone and ruggero deodato. it opens with the eponymous el topo (played by jodorowsky) riding in the desert with his naked son. having turned seven years old, he must prove himself a man by burying his favorite toy and a picture of his mother. afterwards they come across the remnants of a town visited by a slaughter of biblical proportions: bodies and disemboweled animals litter the streets, literal rivers of maroon blood soak in the oppressive heat, and a chorus of unseen birds squawk into oblivion. after castrating and killing the colonel responsible for the massacre, el topo abandons his son with a group of monks and rides into the desert with a young woman he names mara .
endorsements from john lennon and yoko ono that made it a commercial success in its own time. the film conflates classic american western and avant - garde european sensibilities with zen buddhism and the bible as master gunfighter and mystic el topo (played by writer - director jodorowsky) attempts to defeat four sharp - shooting rivals on a bizarre path to allegorical self - awareness and resurrection .
by the time the second half of the film begins, where el topo is resurrected from death after 20 years and joins forces with his now grown son to free a tribe of incestuous dwarfs from their mountain prison by digging them a tunnel to freedom, the audience has come to accept that the plot of el topo is of only secondary importance. here is a film that communes with forces both sacred and blasphemous, both esoteric and exoteric. but above all, it is a film of symbols and images. a bandit uses high - heeled shoes as target practice. a lamb hangs crucified from a stone tower. water erupts from stones in the desert, eggs from beneath the sand, and still the mole digs and digs and digs and dies .
but that’s not all, jodorowsky is also planning to make his long gestating the son of el topo film, a sequel to his 1970 cult classic. jodorowsky has recently put together a graphic novel of the first thirty minutes of the first film, with help from artist josé ladrönn. i was lucky enough to see the graphic novel, and it looks very much in keeping with the original film, and is packed full of arresting imagery. the graphic novel has a table of contents at the start that lists three chapters: ‘abel’, ‘cain’ and ‘abelcain’, but jodorowsky said that this novel is part one of four. i also spoke to jodorowsky about the son of el topo and he discussed the graphic novel and his desire to make the film :
roger ebert once wrote: “if you have to ask what something symbolizes, it doesn’t. ” such a latitude seemingly stymies attempts to interpret the works of alejandro jodorowsky, that great chilean - born artistic polymath who has amassed one of the most distinctive, original, and frightening bodies of work since william blake and pablo picasso. one of the crown jewels of his life’s work is the ostensibly incomprehensible el topo, a western about a black - clad gunslinger who undergoes a doomed quest for enlightenment. “el topo” is the spanish word for “mole. ” and in the film’s opening moments a narrator explains: “the mole digs tunnels under the earth, looking for the sun. sometimes, he gets to the surface. when he sees the sun, he is blinded. ”
another easier - to - spot influence on “rango” that appears in his list is alejandro jodorowsky ‘s psychedelic midnight movie “ el topo. ” when discussing “el topo, ” he just took a deep breath and said, “that thing is a trip. a mystical, spiritual allegory of western spiritualization, all of that. i think it says that you can have allegory and metaphor and things like that in a western. alejandro, in that movie, did so much more for the western. ” verbinski did a lot for the western too, throwing in his influences into a truly potent pop culture bouillabaisse that will probably inspire whole generations of kids without them even knowing it (until one of them makes a highly stylized breakthrough years from now and puts “rango” on their list) .
“i could never do ‘son of el topo, ’ for 40 years, ” jodorowsky, 82, told the wrap. “it cost $ 30 million and they didn’t want to give me that. but in three more days, i will start to make the comic book of ‘son of el topo. ’ i’ll do it in comics. and also ‘king shot, ’ i’ll do it in comics. all the pictures i could never do, i’ll do it in comics. all the comics i do are the pictures i could never do. i don’t believe in failing. i have dignity. i will never fail; if i can’t do it in movies, i’ll do it in comics. if i can’t do it in comics, i’ll do it in a written book. ”
a surreal cross between a sergio leone spaghetti western and (a poor man' s version of) andrei tarkovsky' s metaphysical sagas (stalker, mirror), el topo made a big splash during its brief run. widely credited as the first midnight movie, it enjoyed a sold - out nightly run at the elgin theatre in manhattan for more than nine months, starting in december 1970 .
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from deranged acid westerns to head - scrambling esoteric epics, the chilean avant - garde filmmaker and author alejandro jodorowsky is revered by both critics and cult cinema enthusiasts alike for films like el topo and the holy mountain. with his latest magical - realist fable danza de la realidad premiering at the 2013 cannes film festival, the 84 - year prankster, philosopher and provocateur remains a controversial and vital auteur.
el topo ( english translation : " the mole " ) is a 1970 mexican western drama film written , scored , directed by and starring alejandro jodorowsky . characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences , use of maimed and dwarf performers , and heavy doses of christian symbolism and eastern philosophy , the film is about the eponymous character – a violent , black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment . 
el topo (english translation: " the mole ") is a 1970 mexican western drama film written, scored, directed by and starring alejandro jodorowsky. characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of christian symbolism and eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment.
el topo (english translation: " the mole ") is a 1970 mexican western drama film written, scored, directed by and starring alejandro jodorowsky. characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of christian symbolism and eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment.