Comments on: Mind Blowing Movies: El Topo (1970), by Antero Alli

By: VaughnMarlowe

VaughnMarlowe — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 02:41:00 +0000

I also saw this at Berkeley, probably the same time Alli did. It was the first movie of a double feature in a little theater off campus. I remember the subdued but restless audience, the polite but puzzled attention given the screen, the silence at its ending, my date’s quiet and to me inexplicable tears…

and then the audience eruption of loud cheering as the opening credits of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West flashed on the screen.

By: mixta

mixta — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 06:43:00 +0000

For spanish speakers the whole movie is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXcaLxjILAc&feature=fvwrel.
Pretty decent print too

By: ashypete

ashypete — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:19:00 +0000

I love that interview almost as much as I love everything this man has done… Well not Tusk.

By: blueelm

blueelm — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 17:50:00 +0000

One of my favorite movies ever! Or maybe Holy Mountain.

By: mexican cheese

mexican cheese — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:52:00 +0000

I remember seeing this on the big screen as a little kid. I was maybe five or six, with my mother, in a cinema full of pysch majors. This could be why I find Batmans, Starwars, and other “blockbusters” boring. “El Topo” is awesome. It should be required viewing for all pre-teens. And, it should be said, you need to see it on a big screen, anything under a drive-in would be unjust.

By: tyrsalvia

tyrsalvia — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Antero, I want to thank you for introducing me to this film on the Art Ship so many years ago. It is indeed a mind-blowing film. I’m glad you’re able to post here and share it with so many others.

As an aside, I once looked up the reviews of this film to see what critics were saying about it. As with all great art, some people think it is absolutely brilliant and others think it completely horrendous. The reasons people give for not liking it are awfully revealing, and an object of curiosity all in themselves.

By: davigoli

davigoli — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 08:26:00 +0000

But his Tarot interpretation is genius, it’s always been behind his work and at the very least his book tickles some of the same weird cells that his films do… the maestro bit is part of his shtick, it’s part of what is so appealing about him in his grandpa way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/fashion/alejandro-jodorowsky-and-his-tarot-de-marseille.html

By: OgilvyTheAstronomer

OgilvyTheAstronomer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 06:40:00 +0000

“Ceci n’est pas un western”

By: Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 06:11:00 +0000

My homage to Jodorowsky’s ‘Santa Sangre’
http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2010/10/santa_sangre.html

By: smegoid

smegoid — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 02:44:00 +0000

As great as El Topo was, The Holy Mountain caused twice as many brain explosions. I think the cinematography and sets lured me in more than the endless desert (even with phallic cacti). Of course, the movie that really would have blown us all to pure brain bits would have been Jodorowski’s Dune. We need a kickstarter project to 1) build a time machine and 2) go back and fund the remainder of the movie.

By: Melinda9

Melinda9 — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 02:20:00 +0000

I couldn’t get very far in Santa Sangre – the whole thing with the elephant and some other things I think my mind has blocked.

By: Peter Jes Køhler

Peter Jes Køhler — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 02:05:00 +0000

In Jonathan Ross’ brilliant and indispensable “For One Week Only” segment about Jodorowsky, the director explains that he was unable to make a western, so he made an eastern… http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lPqmBiTVkYQ#t=576s

By: Mark_Frauenfelder

Mark_Frauenfelder — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 01:46:00 +0000

Ha ha! That’s awesome.

By: tristan eldritch

tristan eldritch — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 01:05:00 +0000

I remember renting this out years ago when I was living with some squares. We were watching the trailer first, and one of my flatmates asked what kind of film it was. I didn’t even want to try to explain, so I just said “It’s a western”, figuring that would suffice at least until the freaky shit started.
That very instant, the narrator of the trailer goes:
EL TOPO IS NOT A WESTERN!
Caught red-handed.

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:52:00 +0000

Don’t forget “Santa Sangre”, my man. “Ooooooh, señor Orgo…!”

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:51:00 +0000

Hell yeah! As good as “The Wild Bunch” and “McCabe & Mrs Miller” are, for pure bang for your anti-western buck, nothing comes close to “El Topo”.

Too bad this was in the greedy, spiteful, slimy hands of Allen Klein for so long, Christ was an asshole!

By: Eric Cashew Harding

Eric Cashew Harding — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:48:00 +0000

Bizarro flick, they don’t make em like this anymore. Heres a neat little mashup with Eagle Winged Palace, a trippy folk band from LA to check out. http://youtu.be/9pQqSlLozhI

By: Nawel

Nawel — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:26:00 +0000

I respect early Jodorowsky work (El Topo, The Sacred Mountain). It’s mindblowing. But his more recent “career” as a tarot reader and self appointed “guru”… well, not so much.

By: Marko B

Marko B — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:14:00 +0000

I will never forget the naked kid and his father riding a horse through a river of blood. A good thing to see this masterpiece on bluray