El Topo

I saw this film in a theater in Europe, in the 1970s and its classification as an Acid Western, portraying a counter culture dream through drug induced hallucinations, summed it up well. Alejandro Jodorowsky stalked critics of this film with admissions of criminal behavior and later denials. Hollywood did well by not allowing his Dune to be filmed.

if you want your mind blown, indulge. maybe not fit for obligates.

This review is not speaking the quality of the film. All spoken dialog is Spanish and the English subtitles are out of sync by at least 7 seconds so youre seeing subtitles before characters have even spoken and by the time the actor says the line the subtitles are gone.

Really odd movie found on accident wasnt disappointed its definitely not a movie for the faint of heart.

El Topo is a fil I had read and heard a lot about and decided to see someday. I found it available for rent on Amazon Prime and viewed it after 35 years of curiousity. There was a problem I discovered right away. The movie was neither dubbed NOR SUBTITLED although it was specified to be subtitled in English. I speak and understand very little Spanish, ie I can read a menu and exchange very basic pleasantries and thats about it. This could have been a real problem, if the storyline had not been so simple and sketchy that my partner and I could both follow it without understanding dialog. The fact that I have read a lot about El Topo already also helped me understand what was going on. iBut it was SUPPOSED TO BE SUBTITLED and there were some talkier parts where I would really have liked to have had those subtitles, to know what was being said in the talkier part. Otherwise I wasnt overly impressed. The protagonist looks like a Berkeley drug casualty for the first two-thirds of the film and you could see how the ending was going to go ten minutes before it got there. Its all photographed beautifully and the surrealistic visual aspects are startling and fascinating, but I liked Senor Jodorowskis other films, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN and SANTA SANGRE, much better than this one.

I understand the role of gun violence and cultural violence in westerns and I see how Jodorowsky amplifies these experiences in his movie. Scenes like the gun man shooting the villagers in a line highlight his perspective on this kind of random and personal violence. This type of critique makes sense in all its excesses. What does not make sense to me is having El Topo violently rape the first woman to have any kind of dialogue or introduction in the film. And not even ten minutes before that she is already groped and forced to kiss several men. What is the point of this kind of sexism? It serves no purpose. The commentary is unnecessary and jarring. I would not recommend this film despite its potential cinematographic or metaphorical benefits because of its gross disregard for women.