El Topo

Synopsis: El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man. El Topo (the mole) claims to be God, while dressed as a gunfighter in black, riding a horse through a spiritual, mystical landscape strewn with old Western movie, and ancient Eastern religious symbols. Bandits slaughtered a village on his path, so El Topo avenges the massacred, then forcibly takes their leader's woman Mara as his. El Topo's surreal way is bloody, sexual and self-reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters.
Genre: Drama, Western
Production: Tartan Films
  2 wins.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Rotten Tomatoes:
78%
NOT RATED
Year:
1970
125 min
1,940 Views


You're 7 today.

You're a man now

Bury your first toy and the

portrait of your mother

THE MOLE:

The mole is an animal that

digs tunnels underground

ln search of the sun, it sometimes

comes to the surface

When it sees the sun, it is blinded

Kill me! Kill me, please!

Who was it?

Kill me, for pity's sake!

Who was it?

Who?

Who?

- lt's the colonel

- How many?

Another five men

Where?

ln the Franciscan mission

The colonel's not selfish. He uses

women once and gives them away

The colonel said he'd kill anyone

who touches me

And who told you to?

Don't anticipate my wishes!

Sorry!

They have no souls,

but sometimes they get bored

and l throw them my leftovers

Come on, dogs! Take your

little piece!

Stop, dogs!

Kiss them on the mouth

Keep going! Kiss the other too!

Stop, dogs! Be good

These dogs like to watch

They want to see your breasts

Eat, dogs!

Who are you to hand out justice?

l'm God

No...this no! Don't do this to me!

No!

Destroy me.

Never depend on anyone

Cry little boy! Cry and

then he'll pity you

lt's bitter

Moses found water in the desert

The people couldn't drink it

because it was bitter

The water was named Marah

lt's turned sweet!

l'll call you Marah because

you're like bitter water

How will we live here?

We'll die of thirst

As the deer yearns

for water,

so my soul invokes you, Lord

My soul is thirsty for God,

for the living God

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

- Do you love me?

- Yes

Me no. For me to love you,

you've got to be better

The four masters of the gun

live in this desert

l must find them and kill them

The desert is round. To find the 4

masters we must move in a spiral

l can't go on, let's go back!

l always end up where l started

We'll never find them

lf they're masters,

they'll give us a sign

Days have passed...weeks, months

- How can you still have faith?

- They're waiting for us

The sign!

Seek the light at midday. He'll

come. You must wait to see him

Like that woman

The master didn't want to fight her

The master wants to receive

you know. lt's strange...

he never receives people

without making them wait

There's an oasis behind

the dune

Your woman will wait there

Let's go

Give me the gun and the sombrero

l don't need the light. l'm blind

Count to three and try to take it

One...

two...three!

How?

l do not try to win, but to arrive

at perfect control

to not be afraid of the bullets

Shoot!

They hardly bleed. l offer no

resistance to the bullet

l let it pass through the

capillaries of my flesh

You still want to duel with me?

Yes

lt does not grieve me to kill you,

because death does not exist

l will let you shoot first

- He's superior to me

- You'll win!

Even if l won, l'd lose

l'm asking you a favour.

You must win

Don't be so honest.

Try to invent something

Lay a trap. There's always

a way to win. Find it!

l told you! l expected it,

l'm proud of you!

There are only 3 masters left

l know where the 2nd lives. lf you

let me come with you, l'll show you

He's here, wait for me

We were waiting for you.

The cards say this about you

You're falling and you'll

fall anyway

The deeper you fall,

the higher you'll get

Traitor, coward, murderer!

God's will is unexplainable

My son and l must respect you

You can duel with him

Cross!

The duel starts right now

You and my son can shoot

when you want

Dead!

Technically you're dead

Now l want to talk to the dead one

Follow me

First of all, l made things

out of copper

and l strengthened my fingers

Now l make delicate objects

l'm so strong that l can play

with this shape

without breaking it

Shoot!

A clean, delicate shot

destroys an accurate one

You shoot to find yourself,

l do it to shoot

Perfection is to lose yourself

and to lose yourself you need

to love

You don't love. You destroy, kill

and no one loves you

Because when you think you're

giving, you're really taking

l've given myself to her.

l told her everything

She's inside me

Her infinite love fills me

What l do and say is ordered

and blessed by her

l hate all that is mine,

because it distances me from

her divine presence

Two are better than one,

because if they fall, one will

lift up his companion

When there is only one,

there is no one to lift him up

When l made this, l didn't

think it would be useful

l just tried to make it the best

way l possibly could

Take your gun again

My son wants to give you

one last chance

PROPHETS:

l don't want you to go near him

Why do you follow us? Go away!

We don't need to take your gun

away. We trust you

You have a flute! We'll get to

know each other through music

You're disgusted at yourself.

You don't want to betray any more

Now you want to respect the law

Some give flowers.

Some, precious objects

You bring me your life as a gift

You are not afraid to die

This is why you are a

dangerous enemy

When you were 7 metres

from the rabbit run,

my rabbits started to die.

Now they're nearly all dead

Now that you're here,

not one will be left alive

l made it.

Feel how fine it is...

You can fire a shot

lt is all that l need.

A fatal shot

Shoot!

Which did you kill and

which did l kill?

This is yours:
shot in the head.

This is mine:
shot in the heart

The heart...the head...

A changing of places

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Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (Spanish: [xoðoˈɾofski]; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean-French filmmaker. Since 1948, Jodorowsky has worked as a novelist, a storyteller, a poet, a playwright, an essayist, a film director and producer, an actor in cinematic and theatre productions, a theatre director, a screenwriter, a film editor, a comics writer, a musician and composer, a philosopher, a puppeteer, a mime, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, a draughtsman, a painter, a sculptor and a spiritual guru. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation".Born to Jewish-Ukrainian parents in Chile, Jodorowsky experienced an unhappy and alienated childhood, and so immersed himself in reading and writing poetry. Dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, the Teatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied mime under Étienne Decroux before turning to cinema, directing the short film Les têtes interverties in 1957. From 1960 he divided his time between Paris and Mexico City, in the former becoming a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, while in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, which caused a huge scandal in Mexico, eventually being banned. His next film, the acid western El Topo (1970), became a hit on the midnight movie circuit in the United States, considered as the first-ever midnight cult film, garnering high praise from John Lennon, which led to Jodorowsky being provided with $1 million to finance his next film. The result was The Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. Disagreements with the film's distributor Allen Klein, however, led to both The Holy Mountain and El Topo failing to gain widespread distribution, although both became classics on the underground film circuit.After an aborted attempt at filming Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune, Jodorowsky produced five more films: the family film Tusk (1980); the surrealist horror Santa Sangre (1989); the failed blockbuster The Rainbow Thief (1990); and the first two films in a planned five-film autobiographical series The Dance of Reality (2013) and Endless Poetry (2016). Meanwhile, he has simultaneously written a series of science fiction comic books, most notably The Incal (1980–1989), which has been described as having a claim to be "the best comic book" ever written, and also The Technopriests and Metabarons. Accompanying this, he has also written books and regularly lectures on his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism" and which borrows from his interests in alchemy, the tarot, Zen Buddhism and shamanism. His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism; this work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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