El Topo

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Movie
German title El Topo
Original title El Topo
Country of production Mexico
original language Spanish
Publishing year 1970
length 125 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Alejandro Jodorowsky
script Alejandro Jodorowsky
production Juan López Moctezuma
Moshe Rosemberg
Roberto Viskin
music Alejandro Jodorowsky
Nacho Méndez
camera Rafael Corkidi
cut Federico Landeros
occupation

El Topo is a film by the Chilean director , actor and writer Alejandro Jodorowsky from 1970. Although it appears to be a western shot in Mexico , the film cannot easily be integrated into this genre, because neither the location nor the time of the action come from the real Wild West . The setting is rather mythical in nature and peppered with numerous surreal , Christian and Far Eastern elements. As a Midnight Movie , El Topo achieved cult status .

In Germany, the film was indexed until January 2012 .

action

The gunslinger El Topo (“The Mole”), dressed entirely in black, rides through the desert with his naked, seven-year-old son Miguel. They stop at a lonely wooden post and El Topo orders his son to bury his first toy and his mother's picture here, because at seven he is now a man.

When they leave the desert, they come to a village where a terrible massacre has taken place: Almost all residents and all animals have been slaughtered. The only survivor begs El Topo to kill him. He hands his son a revolver, with which he redeems the seriously injured with a shot in the heart. Now father and son go in search of the murderers and soon find three of them in the mountains. These challenge El Topo to a duel and are killed by him in the process. Before he dies, one of them can reveal to El Topo that their leader, the "Colonel", has holed up with the rest of the gang in a Franciscan mission.

The scene now changes to the mission where five bandits are. One of them shoots defenseless villagers, the other four mistreat monks. The Colonel is inside a building, lying on a bed. His wife Mara comes in to dress him. Then both go outside, where the Colonel gathers the four bandits who had previously abused the monks. As a sign of his generosity, his wife should be sexually pleasing to them. The moment they attack Mara, El Topo appears, who has now killed the fifth bandit. He overpowers the rest of the gang, hands over the weapons to the monks and challenges the colonel to a duel. He initially escapes, but then tries to shoot El Topo, which he fails. El Topo shoots the gun out of his hand, tears his clothes off and finally castrates him, whereupon the Colonel commits suicide.

For El Topo there is now nothing more to do in the mission and he wants to continue riding with his son. But Mara absolutely wants to accompany him, which he initially refuses. Since she cannot be changed, however, he decides to ride with her in the future and instead to leave his son with the monks.

As they move through the desert, it turns out that El Topo has supernatural abilities. He is able to pinpoint turtle eggs buried in the sand, and he manages to make water gush out of a boulder with a shot from his revolver. Mara tries to do the same, but fails. Only when El Topo sleeps with her does she acquire the same skills as him. Mara now wants to know if he loves her. When he says yes, she lets him understand that she can only love him if he is the best; to prove this to her, he must defeat the four masters of the desert in a duel.

When they arrive at the first master, they are received by his two assistants. One has no arms, the other no legs. You now lead El Topo to their master, who lives in a tower. Master explains to him that he has completely overcome his fear of bullets so that they penetrate his body without injuring him. The duel between the two is scheduled for the next day. El Topo wins it by using a ruse: he secretly digs a pitfall overnight . When the master rushes into it, he loses his concentration for a brief moment and El Topo can kill him with one quick shot.

Already during El Topo and Mara's arrival at the first master, a woman was briefly seen who is dressed just like El Topo. After the duel, she comes to the two of them and explains that she can take them to the second master. This is a very strong man who lives in a covered wagon with his mother. His superiority lies in unconditional love for his mother and total devotion to his work. He has long since left the search for meaning and recognition behind, while El Topo has not yet made it. Nevertheless, El Topo manages to kill the second master as well: his mother steps on a shard of a mirror and screams in pain. The master is completely out of his mind and is shot by El Topo.

On the way to the third master, El Topo gradually began to have ever greater doubts about the correctness of his actions. At the same time, Mara begins to alienate himself and instead turn to the woman in black.

The third master keeps numerous white rabbits in an enclosure, which one by one begin to die as El Topo approaches them. The master teaches him that he must switch head and heart. The master's weapon can only fire one shot. When it comes to the duel, he knocks down El Topo, but El Topo is not dead, because a copper ashtray that he had taken from the second master caught the bullet. El Topo shoots the now defenseless master and covers his body with dead rabbits.

Meanwhile more and more unhappy with his own actions, El Topo goes to the fourth and final master. This one does not have a revolver, just a butterfly net. He calls on his challenger to box. When El Topo realizes that none of his blows hit the master, he wants to shoot him. But the master catches his ball with his net and hurls it at his feet. He makes it clear to El Topo that a win would be completely impossible because he has absolutely nothing. When El Topo objects that he could at least take his life, the master replies that that would also mean nothing, takes El Topo's revolver and shoots himself with it.

Now El Topo is overcome by despair. He runs back to the graves of the other masters and finally tears down the tower of the first master. With the rubble he smashes his revolver and finally renounces violence. First he raises his fist against Mara when she wants to celebrate him as the winner, but he can no longer hit her. Instead, he leaves her. The woman in black now wants to duel with him, but he refuses. The woman is not deterred and strikes him down with shots in the hands and feet, causing El Topo to receive wounds like Jesus on the cross. She and Mara move away, after which a group of cripples appears and takes the seriously injured man with them.

The second part of the film begins here. Many years have now passed. El Topo finds himself in a cave, where the cripples worship him like a god. A short woman explains to him that they are trapped in this cave. Only a hole in the ceiling leads to the outside, but the climb is dangerous and takes several days. There is a town not far from the cave, but no one wanted to help them there. El Topo is seen by them as the savior who should finally free them from the cave. Together with the short woman he dares the climb and goes to town. He wants to earn money there to dig a tunnel.

The city is ruled by a strange religious cult. Everywhere the symbol of the All-Seeing Eye is emblazoned , executions and fights for life and death, both for public pleasure, are the order of the day. El Topo and the short woman draw the residents' attention with a comical drama. You play lovers who have problems finding each other due to their size difference. The play creates general amusement, and it makes money which they spend buying dynamite to build a tunnel.

Also new to the city is a Franciscan who pays a visit to the priest of the religious cult. Later he attends a church service during which the believers play Russian roulette . When the monk is handed the weapon, the priest whispers to him that it only contains a blind cartridge. The monk then replaced it with a real cartridge, held the gun to his head, pulled the trigger and survived. As in all previous attempts, the crowd believes in a miracle and the weapon is passed on. But finally she gets to a boy and he kills himself. The religious cult has come to an abrupt end.

Meanwhile, El Topo and the short woman are lured into a basement with the promise of being able to earn money, in which there are numerous drunk men and prostitutes. The two should first perform their drama again, but are then forced to show "the rest" - the wedding night. After this incident, the short woman is terribly ashamed, but El Topo consoles her and goes to church with her, intending to marry her. Once there, they meet the monk. El Topo recognizes him immediately, and he recognizes him too: It is Miguel, whom he had left with the Franciscans years ago and who is now a grown man. Miguel gets terribly angry and wants to kill his father on the spot. The short woman can stop him and explains El Topo's plan to him. Miguel decides to put his thoughts of revenge on hold until the job is done.

Time is passing and work on the tunnel is progressing. Miguel has now taken off his monk's robe and is now wearing black leather, just like El Topo at the beginning of the film. Finally the tunnel is finished and the short woman goes to tell the trapped people. El Topo wants to stop them because it is not yet the right time. But he doesn't get around to it, because Miguel now wants to settle accounts with him. He points the gun at him but fails to shoot his father.

Meanwhile the cripples are pouring out of the cave and towards the city. The villagers are alarmed and are preparing to fight. El Topo runs to prevent the massacre, but it's too late. By the time he reaches the city, all the cripples are dead. Meanwhile, the small woman is in labor in the mountains and gives birth to El Topo a son. El Topo, meanwhile, wants to take revenge on the city dwellers. They riddled his body with bullets, but he didn't die. He takes up a rifle and shoots the townspeople one by one. After no one is alive anymore, he pours himself over with oil and burns himself. Miguel and the small woman with the newborn child reach town. They bury El Topo's remains and ride away.

production

Jodorowsky made El Topo for $ 400,000 in eight months. At the urging of John Lennon , who was very impressed by the film, Allen Klein bought the US distribution rights for $ 400,000 through his company ABKCO. This money was immediately stolen by a business partner of Jodorowsky. As a result, Jodorowsky had to return to the theater as a director, where he began work on the script for Montana Sacra .

Reviews

  • “Surreal anti-western, which disguised as an ego trip tells of the main character's search for self-discovery through metaphors on religion, state, society, death, blood and sex. The focus is on the nameless Gunman, clad in black leather, who seeks inner catharsis and the way to God. Similar to Martin Scorsese, but without achieving the strength of the content, director Jodorowsky conveys his views, which can be interpreted over the air, with an ice cold and shocking look at the misery of the world. While it was a manifesto of the counter-movement and hippie culture at the time it was made, the film is only interesting from a scientific point of view today; for the average viewer, ' El Topo ' is likely to be an excruciatingly boring and difficult-to-understand film experience, as the film does not have any tension or tension largely denied the usual narrative structures. "
  • The renowned film critic Roger Ebert counted the film among the Great Movies and awarded the DVD version the highest rating of four stars in 2007, looking back on his review of the original from 1970. Ebert admits that the film does not have to make any coherent sense and has many interpretations admits: "The film exists as an unforgettable experience, but not as a comprehensible one."

Awards

El Topo won an Ariel in 1972 in the Best Camera category.

Others

The official DVD release took place on May 1st, 2007, the first Blu-ray release was on April 26th, 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ El Topo was checked by the FSK on Schnittberichte .com, accessed on October 13, 2013
  2. ↑ a b c d Michel Larouche: Alexandre Jodorowsky cinéaste panique. Presses de l'Université de Montréal Albatros, Montréal 1985, ISBN 978-2-7606-0661-6 , p. 31.
  3. ↑ more-magazin.de
  4. ↑ Review at rogerebert.com from 2007, accessed April 2018
  5. ↑ 'El Topo' & 'The Holy Mountain' Blu-rays Announced