So after a short spell with Hollywood classics, I decided I needed to get back into the dark and gritty corner of art-house films. You probably know the feeling when there is some cult-classic you’ve heard so much about, but haven’t seen. This was the case with me and El Topo, a “cult-classic” that apparently changed the world and cured two types of cancer. It was directed by a guy called Alejandro Jodorowsky, a guy I mistakenly though directed the highly questionable Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000). And it would have made sense if it was so, because El Topo is also highly questionable.
Ostensibly, the film is a mix of surrealism, western and gore. There is also quite a bit of religious allegory going on. A gun-wielding desperado goes on a hunt in the desert for four gun masters so he can impress his girlfriend, and in the progress of all this he is stricken with guilt about his actions, as he cheats his way through the duels. For lovers of gore this film should be right up your alley, as there is plenty of blood and decapitation. The effects are done well and look proper, but I always come to question a film when there is a huge amount of blood, what is it all for, if for anything. I’m also not sure exactly what the film is trying to say, there is a lot to read in it, but it all seems for naught because of the sometimes hazardous camera-angles and strange techniques. There is something almost juvenile about the directing, but at the same time there is something indefinable that is quite interesting. Is this a film that promotes silliness and gore just for the silliness and gore, or is there something deeper to this film? I know a lot of people do read into this, so I will not throw it off yet, but when watching it I never really felt impressed or in awe. This reminded me of Fellini’s Satyricon (1969), but felt that film was more interesting, although I was slightly baffled by it as well.
I guess the main theme I managed to excavate from this film was about redemption in religious terms. After the character has done his bad deeds, the film takes him to another place where he has to atone for his sins. He is through some events brought to a city isolated in the desert, and this is one of the more interesting parts of the film. The city is wonderfully satirical, ruled by a bunch of elderly ladies who pretend to be respectable but are anything but, and use their slaves for their own entertainment. There is also a wonderful scene in a church where the priest has put a bullet in a gun with six chambers, meaning if you shoot there is a 1/6 chance that you will shoot a bullet, and has the people pass it around and point at their own head and click, only to realize when they are not dead the “greatness” of God. Of course, this bullet is a blank, and wouldn’t have fired anyway, showing in a great way the negligent and superficial religion in the town. If I would say something about Jodorowsky as a filmmaker, I would say he is a very physical director. He is constantly interested in shapes, particularly of the human body, the cast and extras all have very strange and unusual bodies and faces. There is one interesting scene, where two men are tied together; one has no legs, the other has no arms. It is a very interesting image, and together with a lot of similar physicality’s remain some of the more interesting aspects of this film.
I did not care too much for this film, I have to say. There is a lot of interesting individual observations and a certain atmosphere throughout the film, but for me it became too childish at times. I know I mentioned I appreciated the silliness in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I cannot say the same for this. Together with all the blood it does seems to take too much away from the film itself as a whole and I felt this undermined the themes and some of the other wonderful observations and scenes. Interesting, but not thoroughly noteworthy.
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