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El Topo (2007)

Alejandro Jodorowsky , Brontis Jodorowsky , Alejandro Jodorowsky  |  NR |  DVD
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, José Legarreta, Alfonso Arau, José Luis Fernández
  • Directors: Alejandro Jodorowsky
  • Format: Color, NTSC
  • Language: English
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: NR (Not Rated)
  • Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
  • DVD Release Date: May 1, 2007
  • Run Time: 125 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000NY1E8U
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,435 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "El Topo" on IMDb

Special Features

  • Exclusive interview with director Alejandro Jodorowsky
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • 2006 on-camera interview with Jodorowsky
  • Photo gallery and original script excerpts

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

El Topo's surrealism is more slapstick than Jodorwosky's brilliant follow-up, Holy Mountain, making it more akin to a spaghetti western than a psychedelic journey through the subconscious. The director stars as the gunfighter, El Topo (The Mole), who first gives his 7-year old son (played by real life son, Brontis Jodorowsky) a glimpse of manhood in the form of weaponry, then abandons him for a horseback revenge trip focused on a heartless team of raping, pillaging bandits. Along the way, he meets Mara (Mara Lorenzio), whose tough love encourages him to become a monk. On El Topo's new quest, he encounters spiritual leaders and endures a series of personal realizations about his past violence. Absurd moments, such as when the viewer first encounters the bandits sniffing and drooling over high-heeled women's shoes out in the desert, make El Topo satirically wry. Brutal scenes in which rivers of blood run through towns, or people slaughter each other in firing lines, remind the viewer of Mexico's bloody history. The mixture of ironic humor and violence in El Topo encapsulates Jodorowky's vision of a world in which reality and the imagination are fused, yet completely separate. This paradox, of great thematic concern in all of Jodorowsky's films, is most resonant in El Topo when Mara and The Mole sadistically communicate with whips, guns, and knives. As Holy Mountain's religious message centers wholly around The Alchemist's transformation of Jesus, El Topo introduces love between man and woman into the symbolic mix, compensating for the divine settings and imaginative characters that elucidate the protagonist's enlightenment in the later Holy Mountain. Only by viewing the two films as a double feature will one get the full power of Jodorowsky's Buddhist message, one of self-sacrifice and suffering towards a greater end. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

It was the landmark cult film that began the whole Midnight Movie phenomena of the counterculture crazy 1970s. EL TOPO was the most talked about, most controversial quasi-Western head trip ever made, transforming the way risk-taking audiences, seeking mainstream Hollywood alternatives, watched edgy underground films. Classic Americana and avant-garde European cinema sensibilities meet Zen Buddhism and the Bible as master gunfighter and cosmic mystic El Topo (played by writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky) must defeat his four sharp-shooting rivals on an ever- increasingly bizarre path to allegorical self- enlightenment and surreal resurrection. -Alan Jones

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
(63)
3.9 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 59 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Your mind will never be the same.... March 17, 2007
Format:DVD
I recently saw El Topo at the IFC Theater in NYC, and the restoration was beautiful. This film has only been available in North America in bootleg form, and these bootlegs ran from from passable to abominable. My personal copy was a VHS dub of a Japanese laserdisc, which had the film optically censored (you can't show pubic hair in Japan, but just about everything else), Japanese subtitles, and it was dubbed in English (it is supposed to be in Spanish). Now we will get it as the great Alejandro meant it to be seen. This film is really astounding at times, considering Jodorowsky was mainly known as a theater director, and he had only directed one previous feature (the little seen and frequently banned Fando y Lis). His films have a truly hallucinatory quality that is magnificent to behold. This was reportedly John and Yoko's favorite movie. They recommended that Allen Klein pick up the rights to it, and he did. Allen and Alejandro have been feuding for the last 30 years over this film and who owns the rights, but luckily, they've made peace (let's hope it stays that way). El Topo, along with The Holy Mountain, are Jodorowsky's best films. Many thanks to ABKCO films for finally releasing this masterpiece.

Just to let you know, the above is a review of El Topo. This review is also appearing for some reason under the box set of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The box set is magnificent, by the way...
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Unearth the mole--bring it into the light of day. June 3, 2005
Format:VHS Tape
Notorious as "the" cult movie between "Night of the Living Dead" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "El Topo" certainly deserves a new, commercial DVD edition no less than the aforementioned cult hits and the contemporaneous "Pink Flamingoes." The film is primarily Jodorowsky's private allegory, often inscrutable but nonetheless thought-provoking and conducive to productive discussion--perhaps more than any independent film prior to "Eraserhead."

There's something for everyone in this film. The alternative, cultist crowd will enjoy the striking, often daring, imagery--the nude child who accompanies the mole, the wife impaled on a lofty stake towering over a pool of blood, the lust in the dust scenes, the mutilated bodies, the homoerotic images, etc. The philosophic and theologic-minded will have a field day with the film, drawing as it does on all three of the world's major religions with a good deal of "magic realism" thrown in. (El Topo's mortification and transformation into a clown recalls both St. Paul's "you must become a fool for Christ" and the privileged and sacred role of the clown in Eastern religions; his self-immolation summons up television imagery of Buddhist monks in Viet Nam during the time of the film's production.) The archetypologists will no doubt interpret the film as a variation on the Campbell monomyth, beginning with the hero's departure and--following numerous tests, descent into the belly of the whale, and resurrection--concluding with his return home.
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20 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Complex Mexican Religious Allegory June 29, 2007
Format:DVD
El Topo is the classic Mexican film hailed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono enough that it was shown at midnight in many cinemas for years. It is often credited as starting the midnight movie countercultural that helped bring attention to, and build cult film audiences for movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and David Lynch's Eraserhead. In that respect it is far from a mainstream film but it got enough attention that it is celebrated even today. I feel that this is with good reason, as El Topo is one of best films ever made. Alejandro Jodorowsky directs and stars as the title character.

El Topo begins with its eponymous character in the desert with his son. He tells the boy to bury a picture of his mother and his toy in the sand as now it is time for him to become a man. The boy is vulnerable but El Topo leads him by example while protecting him in their various interactions with others. The film understands the western genre and the machismo that often accompanies it. El Topo is one bad cowboy who can guarantee protection for anyone he cares about. So it really sucks when he soon leaves his son behind with a bunch of monks after emasculating some evil banditos. He leaves with a girl he saved and he names her Mara. Mara loves El Topo for being the alpha male that he is, so she convinces him to kill the four best gunslingers so he can be baddest cowboy of them all. He manages to defeat them in various significant ways. These scenes are rich in biblical and other religious references and operate allegorically to show that being a bad cowboy isn't really all it's cracked up to be. Nevertheless, for better or worse, El Topo kills all four of them and begins to learn four specific lessons along the way.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray
NOTE: For the purpose of this review, I will be addressing the new Blu-Ray editions of "El Topo" and its sequel "The Holy Mountain" together. I viewed them back to back and feel that it is easy to see the two films as one experience.

Blu-Ray specs: If all you care about is how the new discs stack up, let's get that out of the way. Both films have received new HD transfers and look better and crisper than any other version that I've seen. That day-glo blood is potently orange! El Topo is in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio (won't be in widescreen), while The Holy Mountain is anamorphic. Most notable special features on El Topo are Jodorowsky commentary and an additional interview. Most notable special features on The Holy Mountain are a commentary track, deleted scenes, and insight into the film restoration. Both have traditional extras like the trailer, photo gallery, and script excerpts.

Madman or genius? Pretentious hokum or revolutionary cinema? Alejandro Jodorowsky is a film maker whose vision brooks very little middle ground. It seems to be a love it or hate it proposition. In truth, I'm a fan--but his work is definitely not for everyone. I may get into trouble with the most ardent of Jodorowsky enthusiasts when I say that I get more visceral satisfaction from the madcap imagery in his films than to any purported deep meaning. As two of his trademark films hit Blu-Ray, I was pleased to get an opportunity to check out his landmark films "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain" again after about ten years. Experimental, controversial, provocative, disturbing--these demented films helped define the cult movie scene in the early seventies. "El Topo," in fact, played as a midnight movie in New York City for seven straight months.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Memories
I bought it as a gift for my husband. He's wanted this movie since forever. Very happy I found it at Amazon.
Published 7 days ago by TERRY
1.0 out of 5 stars Silly
I suppose that this film was made to shock the audience but to me it just came off as being silly. I didn't bother watching to the end.
Published 12 days ago by Citris1
5.0 out of 5 stars First of the Midnight Movies
I first saw this film at the Elgin Theater in New York in the spring 1971 as a "Midnight Movie." My best friend had called me and was adamant that I had to come to New... Read more
Published 1 month ago by BFP
5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Jodorowsky!
I saw this when it first arrived in this country and still love it. I think this was his masterpiece.
Published 2 months ago by Lapis
5.0 out of 5 stars ILHM Reviews: El Topo
The road to enlightenment is paved in blood in EL TOPO, the feature film that brought Alejandro Jodorowsky to the public for the first time and single-handedly started the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Carl Manes
5.0 out of 5 stars Great price, shipped quickly.
I bought this for my boyfriend as a gift. I haven't watched the movie but he loves it. It was a great price and arrived quickly.
Published 5 months ago by Jessie
3.0 out of 5 stars Looked like someone beat up the DVD case when I got it.
So I got the DVD today. The case was totally ruined like someone had mishandled it. Luckily, the DVD didn't break. Don't order from the deeveedees corp. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Vanesa
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Movie
I saw this movie when it first opened at the Elgin Cinema in NYC. In fact, I saw it several times at the Elgin because there was so much visual imagery in this movie, that I could... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jay
4.0 out of 5 stars region code bluray
this bluray is what i expected, except it is region protected; it does not play in my player from philips but it does on my computer with total media theatre after changing the... Read more
Published 11 months ago by marcel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Job
Very quick service, arrived sooner than predicted. Great movie, as expected for any movie by Jodorowsky. One has to look deeper into the movie than the surface.
Published 12 months ago by Sheriff
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release?
Sometime in 2007 it will be released along with The Holy Mountain. Search El Topo on Youtube, there's a Jodorowsky interview about it.
Oct 25, 2006 by charlieheston |  See all 3 posts
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