Review of El Topo (1970) by Brandon A — 21 Jan 2009

Some things which, from a sufficiently informed standpoint, El Topo definitely is NOT: "empty of real meaning", filled with "cinematic Malapropisms" and "vapid imagery." In fact, images with vast, multiplicative tiers of meaning are uniquely exhibited in this groundbreaking effort to push stagnating film conventions to a new, prototypical extreme, such that El Topo cannot help but challenge even the "hippest" of viewer--to say the least of more superficial ones. A couple of perspectives that may enlighten a less-informed initiate to the intensities of depth encapsulated in this thriving collage of allegory: (1) Viewed as a satire of popular, relatively "typical" Spaghetti and American Westerns (cf. such films as A Fistful of Dollars, True Grit, et al.) and the often utterly transparent, conventional ideals inherent to such fare, El Topo's unceasingly scathing commentary makes apparent a critical theory, via sober yet nightmarish images, put toward the true nature of so many bleak realities hidden behind the pervading glamour of similar contemporary "classics." (2) Taken as a kind of postmodernist 95 Theses on the corruptions, shortcomings, and vanities of organized religion (i.e., including but hardly limited to Catholicism), the orchestral progression of poetic images all but serenades the viewer with most elaborate melodies of spiritual revelation.

For most, unless you've read all the relevant literature and commentary regarding this film and seen all of Jodorowsky's other efforts (i.e., unless you were about 95% prepared for it prior to seeing it), taking a solitary, first viewing of El Topo is about as good as having never seen it at all. If you really want to figure out what its critical acclaim was for, or why John Lennon endorsed the film, be prepared to watch it again and again--and to first put on your sharpest thinking cap! Only AFTER doing so may anyone reasonably profess to dislike it on the basis of dismissing its anticipatory attributes as "uninfluential.".