Film for the Soul

As voted by the Film for the Soul community.

No. 18 - El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
Ranked #688

I'm not God, I'm a man - El Topo

Dressed head to toe in black leather, accompanied by a naked seven year old boy (Brontis Jodorowsky), El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky) rides into shot on a horse. Shielded by an umbrella, protecting himself from the searing heat of the desert sun, he instructs the child to bury a portrait of his mother and his favourite toy because 'now, you are a man'. It's an unnerving and surreal opening to what proves to be a visual assaulting, ultra-violent acid-western, dripping with religious allegories, pretentious, sardonic dialogue, adorned with freaks and body transgression. Labeled the first 'midnight movie', El Topo became a cult favourite with the hipster, bohemian crowd of its day, gaining a word of mouth reputation, it somehow captured the spirit, an ideal, a certain moment in time and played it out in a bizarre, but totally bewitching, style.

The film doesn't lend itself to easy translation, playing, as it does, on shocking visuals, symbolism, mysticism, mind-bending sound effects, cartoonish, often disturbing violence, spoof and homage. El Topo can really be separated into two chapters, the first finds El Topo, accompanied by his son, seeking vengeance for a village, where the inhabitants have been mercilessly slaughtered. A blood strewn street lined with the remains of people and animals, lie scattered, some with the guts hanging out, walls are stained the colours of crimson and claret, whilst a red river, the blood of the innocents, trickles through the village. This alarming scene, with it's uber-violent mise-en-scene, is at the heart of what makes El Topo such a contradictory experience; the feeling of revulsion goes hand in hand with admiration, nausea, disbelief and amazement, it's a true battle of the senses as to what feeling you should go with first.


El Topo tracks town the murderers, a stereotypical bunch of bandits, who we witness, randomly shooting people, taking refuge in a monastery and harassing their Franciscan monk hostages; lewd sexual gratuity and religious symbolism run tandem throughout Jodorowsky's pseudo-philosophical tome. El Topo castrates the leader of the group, a generalissimo figure, full of pomposity and pout, then rescues the now dead leader's woman, Mara before leaving his son with the monks and taking up his spiritual quest to kill the 'four masters of the gun'. Despite the surreal nature of these events within this imaginary realm, Jodorowsky plays it for real and through an array of accomplished camera work, editing, visual and audio techniques, is able to add a viable touch of 'realism', to this otherworldly environment.

The second half witnesses a re-birth, a resurrection if you will, of our protagonist, after his near death at the end of the first chapter. Saved by a bunch of social outcasts disfigured by rampant incest, now cave dwellers, El Topo reawakens, wearing robes resembling the garb of Buddhist monks, sitting in the lotus position, white bearded and humbled. It's just one of a plethora of religious allegories, assembled and taken from a number of religions, myths and fables, that are thrown together into a melding pot and, although aesthetically arresting, do nothing for any sort of semblance or coherence for the casual viewer. Yet this was the intension, El Topo is akin to a spiritual journey, for both the audience and lead protagonist, which through the violent actions and recriminations of the first half, he awakens enlightened and ready to change the world for the better through his rebirth.


It's this sense of spiritual identity, an awakening, that seems to be a preoccupation for Jodorowsky, bombarding the viewer with an endless stream of symbolism, aphorisms and mysticism. El Topo literally means 'the mole' and the film opens with a voice over stating that "the mole spends its live digging tunnels, trying to find its way to the sun, but when it finally emerges from the darkness, the sunlight blinds the poor creature". The opening summation spells out our protagonists attempted spiritual quest; his journey to find enlightenment through fighting, and killing, the four masters of the gun, his messiah like death and re-birth, the task he sets himself to help the disfigured and the deformed only to find the world corrupted and beyond approach before his own self-sacrifice.

El Topo is by far a subtle piece of work, heavy handed, with it's tongue firmly set in cheek, some of the set-pieces and symbolism are bombastic to say the least. The 'eye set in the pyramid' banners that adorn the vastly wealthy and chubby peopled town during the film's second half, are obviously taken from the American dollar in an attempt to lampoon the United States, which depicts a society ravished by opulence and arrogance. A church claiming miracles in a rigged game of Russian roulette, is blatantly shouting down at organised religion and depictions of rape and bawdy sexual innuendo (phallus shaped rocks, vaginal shaped fruit) are cumbersome to say the very least.


The sheer number of ideas and images on display can be slightly overwhelming and in the effort to impress and inspire, it sometimes fails to translate to the screen. If I'm honest I really don't know where I stand with it, sometimes I found it pretentious and preachy, whilst at other times it was lyrical and exciting. What we're supposed to make of it all, only Jodorowsky knows, or does he? Jodorowsky is something of a personality, infamous for the odd pretentious quote and for self-aggrandising, maybe he summed it up best when he claimed "most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles". Which neatly sums up my experience of watching El Topo better than any conclusion could claim to do, so, with that, I shall take my leave.


Originally posted on:Film for the Soul