El Topo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
El Topo

Theatrical release poster.
Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Produced by Juan López Moctezuma
Moshe Rosemberg
Roberto Viskin
Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky (written by)
Starring Alejandro Jodorowsky
Brontis Jodorowsky
Music by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Nacho Méndez
Release date(s) December 18, 1970 U.S. release
Running time 125 min
Language Spanish
Budget $400,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 Mexican allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, 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.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie takes place in two parts. The first half, in an unnamed desert, begins with the title character, accompanied by his naked son, hunting down and killing a band of outlaws who have butchered the inhabitants of a town. After leaving his son with monks he has rescued from the outlaws, he rides off with a woman the outlaws had kept captive to defeat the four great masters of pistol duelling. As El Topo encounters each of the first three masters, the master teaches El Topo a lesson and they then duel, in which El Topo cheats every time. The final master kills himself, in a demonstration of the unimportance of life. The first half ends with El Topo's betrayal and near-murder by the woman and an unnamed informant.

The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts, saving him from death. The outcasts take El Topo to their underground community, where he, comatose, meditates on the four lessons for many years. When he awakes, he is 'born again' with the help of the outcasts, and goes on a quest to free them from their subterranean prison.

With the help of his dwarf girlfriend and his full-grown son, now a priest, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave, only to see the others of his community murdered by cultists from a nearby town. In a rage, El Topo kills them all, then pours oil on himself and sets himself on fire, as he has learned all he can about life.

El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the ordeal and make a grave for his remains, which becomes a beehive full of honey.

[edit] Interpretation

The film is sometimes interpreted as a metaphor for the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the four duelists representing the four great prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel) of the Old Testament and El Topo himself representing Jesus Christ.[citation needed]

In an animated introductory sequence, "The Mole" is directly explained to be one who has experienced the process described in the Platonic allegory of the cave, found in Plato's The Republic (dialogue).

The final scene where El Topo burns himself bears a similar imagery to the photo of a Buddhist monk who burned himself in May of 1963 outside the U.S Embassy, during the Vietnam War as a form of protest.

It is implied that El Topo was to be reincarnated as a baby through his dwarf girlfriend the moment he set himself on fire at the ending sequence. This has been interpreted as representing the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

  • The film was shot on sets leftover from the production of another Western, The Day of the Evil Gun.[citation needed]

[edit] Sequel

Since at least the early 1990s, Jodorowsky has been attempting to make a sequel to El Topo. In 1996, a teaser poster was released [1], but apparently, no shooting was actually done. The original working title, The Sons Of El Topo (Los Hijos Del Topo), was changed (sometime between 1996 and 2002) to Abelcain, due to disputes over ownership with Allen Klein. Additionally, the name of the character El Topo (The Mole) was changed to 'El Toro' (The Bull). Jodorowsky said of this, "I am now working on a Franco-Canadian production called Abelcain, which is a new version of the same project. The character El Topo has become El Toro. A single slash added on letter P changed a subterranean rat into a charging bull. For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities. And clouds become solid present."[citation needed]

A 2002 article in The Guardian stated that Marilyn Manson was attached to star in the film, but that Jodorowsky was having great difficulty raising money for the project [2]. No information has been publicly released about the project since then, and as of 2007, it appears to have been put on hold indefinitely for lack of funds.

[edit] Availability

El Topo is a cult classic that has been out of print for many years. The only option available was to buy poor quality bootlegged DVDs and video cassettes on the internet. El Topo will be officially released individually as well as in a limited edition boxed set by Anchor Bay on May 1st, 2007. Two other films in the boxed set are The Holy Mountain (film) and Fando y Lis(film). The DVDs will include Theatrical Trailers, Audio Commentaries, and two audio cd soundtracks for El Topo and The Holy Mountain.

The film does occasionally run in art-houses, usually in a midnight time slot.

A recent tour of a print early in 2007 ran at the IFC Center in New York City, the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, Cinestudio in Hartford, CT, and the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, with the following program description:

El Topo Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky; Cast: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, Jose Legarreta, Alfonso Arau, Jose Luis Fernandez; 1970, 125 mins In Spanish with English subtitles

"Through the desert, a mysterious gunslinger goes on a quest to become the best gunfighter. On this mystical journey, he encounters one increasingly bizarre character after another. Though conceived to pay homage to various Italian westerns, it can best be described as Fellini directing a Catholic western while soaring high on LSD. There’s never been a western more surrealistic and apocalyptic."

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../e/l/_/El_Topo_5a3f.html"