Konterr Brilliant and touching

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

AbenezerS Very strange, still manages to be one of the most beautiful films that I have ever seen. Cinematography is unmatched. Composition makes me want to cry tears of joy. I would definitely recommend this to anyone. Story seems a bit incomprehensible at times but the epicness makes up for the holes in the story (at the end of the day the story doesn't matter that much). I watched Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain on the come down of an acid trip and I enjoyed that very much and I imagine that this movie would also pair wonderfully with said substances.

George Roots (GeorgeRoots) It's 4am in the morning. Thunder and rain is pouring hard and stopping me from sleeping, so I decided to flip up the laptop and finally write a review I've been meaning to write since viewing the movie a week ago."El Topo" (The Mole), Alejandro Jodorowsky's visually striking western is the kind of movie I've been waiting for in a while. Even after 44 years, this movie still has the power to shock and or charm the viewer through imagery and symbolism that is essential Jodorowsky. So much so that one should catch up with the dream landscape paintings of Salvador Dali, and crack open various tales of religion and folklore because "El Topo" has plenty. Even now it's ambiguous what could be represented without forcing an answer.Kind of split into two parts, which has been linked to the Old and New Testament. It begins with a black clad figure roaming the desert on his horse accompanied by his young (naked) son, who doesn't seem to be fazed by the brutal slaughters they encounter on their travels. After the father has claimed his victory from the perpetrator, the imprisoned lady convinces El Topo to abandon his son and set out to defeat the four great gun masters in the West, becoming the greatest gunman of the land. Each master is of different ethnicity & religion, who begin to make El Topo question his motives thoroughly. What I can only imagine is the Adam & Eve story, a female stranger comes to their oasis and joins them in their quest, leading all involved to more mirages and ecstasy of the flesh. Reaching the end of his mission, events unfold which arguably set up the redemption & rebirth of the character.Years later. Our protagonist awakens in a cave full of deformed people, who have nurtured him and worship him as a deity of sorts. Upon leaving the mountain and accompanied by a dwarf woman, he learns the town nearby is populated by a bunch of surreal, aristocratic cultists who trapped the people in the mountain, whom are lacking the physical capabilities to escape. El Topo (Adopting a Buddhist appearance, after a spiritual rebirth) and his friend begin planning to help their people by performing in the streets in exchange for petty cash, in turn to purchase dynamite. During their time families form and re-unite, beliefs are toppled and the motivations for peace are a violent, double edged sword.One could say it's indulgent for a man to direct, write, star and craft the music for his picture. However, on repeated viewings of the directors extraordinary filmography, anything else would feel unjust. "El Topo" does right by not forcing it's symbolism upon you, and it's imagery continues to hold up incredibly well throughout its two-hour running length.Final Verdict: Something raw prevails in "El Topo", that sets it apart from anything I've ever watched. Arguably it's going to be one of those films I'll highly recommend to my friends, continue to prove foreign cinema is a powerful force of imagination outside of the western world, and is right now finding a spot on my all time top 20 favourite films. 9/10. An experience vital to any film-maker.

mikequinlan61 Saw this when it came out many years ago, and was appalled to find that so many of my friends considered this mess to be a 'good' movie. It is, in fact, a pastiche of art film clichés with a load of whipped cream, jimmies and a cherry-on-top existentialism for idiots. I commented at the time on how the visuals were perceived within the framework of drug culture stating that while stoned on pot and well under the influence, 'El Topo' becomes a violent, would-be erotic freak show, and that, I suppose can be very heavy for some viewers. For others, it is enough to make one yawn. So, take your drugs, let your jaw drop, and try to enjoy this watered down knock off of many better films. It certainly didn't work for me.Yes, it has some unusual imagery, designed to fascinate the clueless and titillate the TV hypnotized hordes, but in total, it is no more meaningful than an 'in depth' article in USA Today. A poor sensationalist film by a minor director whose subsequent career foundered badly.

Billy_Crash I usually love the avant-garde, the offbeat, the strange and the surreal. Being a fan of David Lynch, Takashi Miike and Terry Gilliam, bring me the weird and bizarre – but do not bring me "El Topo". This midnite movie cult classic is one of those films I had been told was a "must see", though I knew it was not that easy. Most viewers either love or hate the movie with no in between. Jodorowsky delivered as writer/director/actor/composer a mixed bag of metaphor, allegory, imagery, spaghetti western, fantasy, horror and utter gore, weighed down with Buddhism and Christianity, and just about anything else from the philosophical and metaphysical kitchen sink. The aforementioned is fine, but when the final destination for the audience is nowhere, I can understand the passionate hatred from those who despise the film. Of its lovers, many told me it was "trippy" and they simply liked it because of that.The narrative, however, is all over the place as El Topo (The Mole) travels the Mexican desert to face and kill The Four Masters of the Desert. Do they represent the Four Horsemen, the Four Winds, the Four Elements? It is anybody's guess. The movie is so loaded with imagery upon imagery it is as if Jodorowsky was purposefully stirring the pot just to keep people guessing. Maybe as lovers of the film try to decipher the layers of meaning, Jodorowsky is laughing somewhere. This film did not satisfy me on any level because the result was a pile of primordial ooze that did not have time to gel into something coherent. Granted, I was intrigued by Topo's Zen-like transformation, especially when he worked so diligently to save the deformed cripples, but this was not enough to justify what came beforehand.The movie is a circus sideshow with bits and pieces that are at times amusing while disgusting on other occasions. In this vein, Jodorowsky delivered the grotesque on a tortilla. At times both ridiculous and frightening, he shocks the audience with a stream of phantasmagorical scenes that lead only to the end credits and nothing more. Whatever Jodorowsky was searching for, it was for him and him alone. The movie was self- indulgent and left me amazingly disappointed.I can sit and discuss Lynch's disturbing "Eraserhead", Miike's over-the-top "Visitor Q" and Gilliam's Orwellian "Brasil", but Jodorowsky's work leads to a dead end because it is utterly nonsensical.