Those
of you who have caught this zine in its various past lives may remember
that I was slowly working my way through the spaghetti western genre (verry
slowly, I might add. I still haven't seen the Good the Bad and the Ugly).
Well, I pretty much feel sorry for anything that I watch in the genre from
now on, because I've seen El Topo.
The film's writer/director/star/composer/set designer/etc., Alejandro Jodorowsky, took the spaghetti western's talent for surreal imagery and pushes it well past any sane stopping point. The movie is about this no-name wandering gunfighter (Jodorowsky, natch) who moves through the desert with a naked child. After stopping a General and his gang of cackling thugs, he abandons the kid and takes up with the General's concubine, Mara. Mara goes on to convince the gunfighter that he could be the best; all he has to do is find the four Masters of the Gun out in the desert and defeat them. All this takes the seeming supernatural abilities of the spaghetti western anti-hero and pushes it into the forefront; at one point the gunfighter somehow makes a guard slit his own throat, and he makes his way through the desert pulling water from rocks and eggs apparently at random from the sand.
For the first half of the movie, Jodorowsky does an amazing job of simultaneously commenting on the conventions of the spaghetti western (my favorite is Jodorowsky's spin on the guy who lines up bottles along rocks and shoots them to test his skills. In El Topo, it's not bottles, it's lady's footwear) and progressing his agenda at the same time. And the way the guy frames his shots! Ooo, mama.
The movie is genuinely brilliant, the guy is a genius. Really,
no hype. This is the sort of movie that will win someone immortal acclaim
even if they go on to make crap the rest of their career. And yet, what's
disappointing is the agenda that Jodorowsky goes on to put forth. One half
of the agenda is a commentary/recreation of the sort of "immortal hero"
cycle that Joseph Campbell is so fond of, the other half is an indictment
of civilization as an expression of the inherent evil of man. Which would
be cool, if it weren't for the apparent conclusion of El Topo, which is
that women are responsible for civilization, and so, the inherent evil
of man, as well. Anyone who's read Leslie Fiedler's "Come Back to the Raft
Again, Huck Honey" will recognize all of El Topo's symptoms, and will be
able to profit from wondering about why Jodorowsky deviates from Fiedler's
template in having his 
gunfighter
find love with a female dwarf. That aside, (and it's the sort of thing
that I'm obviously not sure whether it should be put aside), El Topo sent
my brain, like steam, whistling out of the top of my head. It's a can't-miss
movie; you'll either find yourself stunned with an amazing intelligence
and talent, or you'll find much to think about when pondering the fear
of women in western civilization. As you can tell, I recommend it.
All material on these pages is © 1997 by Jeff Lester. With the exception of non-profit distribution, all other rights are reserved.